


Chosen, With Life so Short

by cognomen



Series: Occurian Remains [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Complete, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, From Sex to Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Multi, Politics, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Game(s), Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Starvation, V Shaped Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:22:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 59,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: “You’ve caused a scandal,” Basch says, reaching up to begin the arduous process of undoing his armor. “But it is good to see you well.”Balthier looks a little worn since they last saw each other, but whole. He sits easily but wears looser clothes, a higher collar still, and there’s something at the eyes that suggests—to Basch at least—that the interceding year since last they met has not been entirely spent for dramatic effect.“And you,” Balthier says, warmly. He folds the book closed at last, as if he’s only just remembered its presence. “Though I can hardly say I approve of your choice in a new profession.”Basch knuckles down to become Gabranth. Balthier reappears on the scene after a year in absentia, on the same day his father's research notes are stolen from Draklor Laboratories. In these preparations for peace between the nations that will hopefully last, a new political climate begins to appear and  yet it seems like not every problem was solved in the last epic turn of events. Something still lingers where Venat began...Set after the game and progressing over several year's time. I'm more or less ignoring Revenant Wings.  Arc 1 complete.
Relationships: Balthier/Basch fon Ronsenburg, Balthier/Fran (Ivalice Alliance), Balthier/Fran/Basch fon Ronsenburg
Series: Occurian Remains [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066550
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

1.1 Basch

Basch returns from a long day of discussion amidst men and Judges too used to their own powers being absolute to listen to each other or reach compromise. There is a _weight_ to politics in Archades that is so tiresome. By the end of every difficult day, Basch feels as much swung _from_ the responsibilities and privilege of his position as he does able to make enough leverage of it to get even the most basic of tasks accomplished.

His manservant Dyce meets him with a cool gaze and pure Archades-born professionalism. He takes the helmet that Basch had been both dismayed and relieved to find stayed on for _every_ official function, and then pauses to receive the heavy cape as well when Basch unfastens it from the anchors that stay it to his shoulders. 

“Are you ready for your supper, Master Gabranth?” 

_Dyce has had decades to perfect that tone of respectful, cutting sarcasm._ Basch thinks. He feels sweaty and irritated from a day of raising his voice to be heard over others.

“No,” he decides. “I’ll take the time to refresh myself before I eat. 

“I can send someone up to draw a bath,” Dyce turns to carry out the order before Basch can protest. He has gotten better about remembering not to, even for so simple a task, here in Tsenoble where heated and running water are as common an occurrence as they are unimaginable in Old Archades.

But, Gabranth would let his servants see to such things, and in the year since arriving, Basch has learned to let Dyce take the lead on the habits he’s supposed to maintain for this facade. If it means letting a servant get paid to turn the faucet on and lay out his towels… Well, he’s sure they’re happy to have a lighter duty than some. 

He strips his gauntlets off to free his hands for the dexterous task of removing the rest of his armor as he heads upstairs with his thoughts still full of the earlier meeting. At the foot of all the councilors and judges was the issue of Draklor Laboratories, yet again. _At the least, I can be assured that Lord Larsa and I are in accord about it._ _It is just a matter of getting the rest of the governing machinery to..._

A sudden shriek as he reaches the top of the stairs terminates Basch’s train of thought, and quickens his step to the source—his own chambers, where the maidservant is backing out in shock. She looks unharmed, but scared. He has his hand on his sword anyway, ever alert for treachery in Archades. He steps between her and the open door to his quarters where the danger might come from and hopes to himself that she’s not one of the sillier ones to scream about a common rat or an insect…

“There’s a man inside,” she whispers, pointing through the door. Basch goes tenser still, and draws his sword as he enters, on guard.

He sweeps his gaze over the chamber; the huge bed made with sharp, military precision and as is his preference the covers are tucked under and not left to hang to the floor so that someone may hide beneath, the sparse and heavy decor that always makes the dark wood paneling on the walls feel nearly stifling in all but the brightest daylight or firelight. There’s a massive fireplace that for the warm season is swept and closed with an ornamental screen depicting a stylized design of Bomb spirits in wrought metal, and to either side of a small attending table with a pile of books balanced on it is a pair of comfortable chairs. 

One is occupied, but not by a would-be assassin—just by an old friend. Basch hesitates only a moment to digest his surprise at the sight. He’s aware that several other servants are gathering in the hall behind him while Balthier smiles at him, slow and pleased with the chaos he’s wrought.

“Ah,” Basch sheathes his blade, thinking quickly. He turns to address his servant. “I forgot I had an appointment with one of my potential… adjuncts.”

It’s not strong but it’s not the worst excuse. He _has_ been seeking to hire an assistant. “Thank you, Millicent. I apologize for the fright.”

“But ser, he weren’t announced—”

Basch sweeps the door closed to shut out the prying eyes, earning an amused smile from his unexpected guest. He steps further into the room, trusting that his staff is well trained enough to respect the obvious signal of the closed chamber door.

Balthier has one of Basch’s novels in his lap, a heavy tome in the Archadian style of romance—the usual tale of love restrained by the rules and limits of status and ambition. To Basch, it feels fussy and full of manufactured problems, but he enjoys thinking of his fellow judges all engaged in such affairs and handling them as badly as the book protagonists.

“You’ve caused a scandal,” Basch says, reaching up to begin the arduous process of undoing his armor. “But it _is_ good to see you well.”

Balthier looks a little worn since they last saw each other, but whole. He sits easily but wears looser clothes, a higher collar still, and there’s something at the eyes that suggests—to Basch at least—that the interceding year since last they met has not been entirely spent for dramatic effect.

“And you,” Balthier says, warmly. He folds the book closed at last, as if he’s only just remembered its presence. “Though I can hardly say I approve of your choice in a new profession.”

“I endeavor to put some semblance of respectability into the position,” Basch sighs, settling the gorget aside on the bed—tidily and carefully made. He almost regrets setting the armor on the pristine bedspread, even though it’s just as clean. It’s polished every morning by servants and hardly sullied by his day in debate at court. _Messy as our disagreement was, it didn’t leave me gore-spattered._

“Might as well try to find dignity in being bent over gripping your ankles,” Balthier mutters, softer, before he finds a proper sharp retort, quick as ever with his words. “How’s that going?”

“As you might expect,” Basch answers, and it feels good not to have to prevaricate or evade the truth for once. “It’s difficult to keep the guise that I must and speak as plainly as I feel needs to be done.”

Balthier rises to his feet and sets the book back atop the stack before he comes to attend the straps at Basch’s back. “If you spoke plainly, they’d quickly aspire to have you removed. Perhaps committed. Hold still.”

The armor shifts and Balthier makes quick work of the straps at Basch’s sides, letting the breastplate loose as Basch steadies it so it doesn’t clatter to the floor when it’s free. He places it on the bed, too. “Thank you for the assistance, if not for the harsh truth.”

“You look as if you had a long day,” Balthier helps Basch next with the arms, before Basch has to sit down and pull off his boots and leg armor. It takes far too much of his day to put all his brother’s trappings on.

“I spent all of it in committee.” Bash is stripped at last to his padding. Realization hits him then, and he looks up to meet Balthier’s gaze. “Arguing over what’s to be done about the theft of some of Doctor Cid’s remaining research notes.”

Balthier offers his bare and empty hands as weak evidence of his innocence, but it does nothing to soothe Basch’s suspicions at Balthier’s fortuitous return on the eve of such a theft. Still, can he really begrudge the man—if it was his theft, who better to have the secrets? Better perhaps than they remain in Archades, laid like a trap for someone to later fully decipher, perhaps.

“I’m sorry to hear of the troubles,” Balthier says, “And the long day they caused you. How did you intend to unwind?”

His suspicions are only confirmed, but Basch lets it rest. He’s happy to see a familiar face, and one he’d spent some time concerned for. “I was about to take a bath, though since you’ve scared my servants away…”

“Scared them? You shut the door,” Balthier chuckles. “Though if you’ve become so accustomed to having others wait on you, _I_ can draw your bath, Judge Magister.”

“Please, no need,” Basch sets his armor padding aside to head for the bath, a tiled and lavish room set off from his sleep quarters. “And no need for titles between the two of us.”

“Well, then I will join you,” Balthier says. “If we’re so informal—though by what name should I then call you? Gabranth? _Noah?_ ”

He has come to learn to answer to both, though in Balthier’s voice they seem deeply wrong and—given their history—he wouldn't want either of them to stick. “On second thought, Judge Magister suits me.”

He pulls his shirt off, aware that Balthier is leaning in the doorway behind him, eyes resting comfortably on Basch’s back. Basch leans over the deep bathing basin and turns on the water, adjusting the temperature until the air begins to fill with steam.

Balthier’s mouth finds the curve at the back of Basch’s neck, his arms settling around Basch’s middle and he leaves a trail of soft kisses along the skin, up toward the back of Basch’s ear. “Basch.”

 _That’s_ the name in the tone of voice he remembers. It jolts down his spine in a sharp line of memory, any number of dozens of evenings—whenever they might find time to rest away from the group. Balthier’s hands ghost over the straps of the leather padding that makes his Judge’s armor sit bearably for the long hours that Archadian circumstance demands. He needs not don it _every_ day, but enough so that his shoulders have grown stronger to bear the weight and that his days of rest bring a marked relief.

Balthier undoes them with the same old familiarity with which he had removed Basch’s armor, his arms around Basch’s side and chin on his shoulder. When he stands beside Fran it’s easy to forget how tall a man he is. Balthier knows every catch and closure, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for Basch to realize why—he has served in such clothes before.

“Did you eschew a manservant as well?” Basch wonders, when Balthier drops the garment aside. He stops the clever hands when they reach for his padded breeks. “A bath first, please. It’s been all day in my Magister’s guise.”

“Guise?” Balthier wonders, then he steps back to let Basch finish with his disrobing. A glance his direction reveals that his hands have gone to undo the hidden fastenings of his vest, ties and hook-and-eyes in place to hold it flattering against his form with the closures invisible. “You’re wearing it in truth, don’t forget.”

“It still does not feel like my place,” Basch answers, truthfully. “Are you joining me?”

“Seems a waste not to, with such a large bathing basin so warmly filled.” Balthier sets the vest aside. “Besides, I have been too long without the luxury of easy access to heated water.” 

At first, Basch thinks it may be a joke, but a glance up from setting his own clothes into a pile for later collection reveals the true hunger of Balthier’s expression. _That_ surprises him. “I would not have expected you to deny yourself.”

He is reaching for the ewer and cloth, intending to dip forth a container of the steaming water and wash the worst of the day from his skin before he sullies the tub water—he has seen how the white porcelain stains in a gray line his servants spend far too long scrubbing out if he does not take such a precaution. But he senses Balthier’s eyes on him, with more attention than their simple nakedness demands.

He raises his gaze to meet Balthier’s and the man’s hands resume work on the buttons of his shirt, from the laced collar and downward, revealing the pale expanse of his chest. There are scars pulling over his shoulders, healed but still pink with recency. One scratches up the side of Balthier’s neck where he had seen it peek beyond the high collar Balthier prefers. “I have been convalescing. In squalor, I might add.”

His tone has some acid in it, but there’s a brittle quality to his gaze and voice that suggest something close to shattering beneath the surface. Basch discards the things in his hands and reaches for Balthier. The sky pirate turns before he even touches, and lets the white silk shirt fall from his shoulders. 

The scar is big. A heavy swipe of something falling and tearing as it passed. It left a wide and ragged shape, now ropey and thick-skinned with scar. It would have left a long weakness in Basch’s experience, and he reaches out to touch it, cautious that it might yet be tender.

“Rather spoils the picture, wouldn’t you say?” Balthier leans into Basch’s bracing hand, pushing his fingertips into the damage as if to prove there is no remaining weakness. 

“I can hardly be called on to judge _that_ ,” Basch protests.

Balthier snorts. “But you wear the title.”

“And I wear a set of similar marks on my own hide, just that yours were earned in valor.”

“ _Hardly_ ,” Balthier draws away from his touch, prickled. “You should finish washing, Captain.”

Belatedly, Basch realizes the wound has cut deeper than skin—It has left its mark on Balthier’s pride and vanity as well. The flesh has healed but the rest—Basch would have to handle carefully until it too could be nurtured to whole again. He reaches again and draws Balthier against him, hiding the marks between the press of their bodies.

“Come now,” Basch says. “You’re still the handsome one.”

Balthier softens some in his hold, and Basch presses his mouth to the scar on his neck, strokes his fingers over the front of Balthier’s throat, and hopes it soothes him some.

“You can prove it to me after a long soak, Basch,” Balthier allows, letting some of the rigidity out of his spine. “But you _do_ really offend, now that I’ve had you close enough to smell.”

Basch laughs, because he is glad beyond description that his friend is alive, and turns to do his washing up.

A long soak does them both good, and Basch reacquaints himself with the near-presence of Balthier as had so often been the case of their companionship. He can guess now the reason that Balthier and Fran had been so long in their reclamation of the Strahl. It must have burned worse than the wounds to be so long without his wings. 

“And Fran?” Basch asks. “She fares well?”

Balthier settles against the edge of the basin opposite, giving the impression of untouchable indolence and propriety above the water level, while below, without any hint of awkwardness from the passed time, his legs sprawl over Basch’s lap comfortably enough to let Basch rub his calves. “I daresay it was a closer thing than she liked, but between the two of us, we’ll live. And she a long time, yet.”

It relieves Basch to hear of her safety—while the pair of them are together, he needn’t fear for either of their safety. They are well balanced in chaos and cunning.

“Has she come, too?”

“Yes, but not to your private quarters.”

“She would be welcome, too,” Basch says.

“Of course, but when we go separate it is for both our pleasures, as you well know.”

So he had planned this. Basch tries not to let the knowledge warm him overmuch under the skin, rubbing idly at the achilles tendon and the curve of Balthier’s heel. How Balthier knew a year would pass and he’d find no substitute in Basch’s bed is a duality of sensation. Both a pleasure at the liberties Balthier has always taken with him and a brief moment of deep lonesome concern for his own future.

“We’ve had perhaps a _little_ too much of each other’s company. It’s past time,” Balthier continues, sinking lower yet in the water. He rests one arm up on the side of the tub and leans his head back on the rounded lip. “We have a strong partnership, but only because we understand the limits of it.”

A year tending each other, with no place to fly to. Basch hadn’t understood the nature of their arrangement at first. He had spent too long in soldiering and not yet enough time in their company to see how it worked between them. Two such bright and free personalities begat a lot of demands—neither expected all to be fulfilled by the other. He had been slow to wrap his understanding around how the loyalty could stay so strong and true when both of them seemed to wander beds as often as it pleased them. How they managed it without jealousy. 

Enough time in Balthier’s company has convinced him it works. Perhaps because the pirate’s wanderings has often brought him to Basch’s bed, and it’s spun his attitude to the idea of enjoying the pleasures of Balthier’s companionship when he knows Fran bears him no ire for it.

“So, you’ll stay?” he asks, watching Balthier’s other hand disappear under the surface of the water and reach for his own cock. His fingers close around it in the swirling water and stroke in slow, decadent rhythm. Basch sets his pace by rubbing in time, up and down the back of Balthier’s calf. 

“For the night,” Balthier promises, not yet breathless. He’s always been damnably good at keeping his composure, an open defiance for his partners to push him to lose it. Others might be put off—Basch has heard tell of it at times that Balthier has been at cups enough to let his guard down and talk of the past.

“I’ve missed you,” Basch confesses, watching Balthier’s hand below the water. The pirate likes as much to put on a show and enjoy covetous eyes on him, Basch thinks. Balthier’s eyes burn into his, focused and intense as Basch reaches up to touch the intimate hollow behind Balthier’s knee, pushing there with two fingers, boldly.

It’s easy to fall back into this with Balthier; he makes it seem like no time has passed at all, as easily as he’d coaxed Basch into his bed in the first place. With him, it’s as if it always has been and always will be. Though he wanders in the manner of a male cat and with nearly as much theatrical yowling, Basch has come to terms with the idea. “Will you let me…?”

Balthier’s fine eyebrows arch in the perfect mime of surprise, a wicked smile on his face. “You’re impatient.”

“It’s been a year.”

“Longer,” Balthier sighs, giving his cock a long stroke root-to-tip to demonstrate a span that Basch can follow with his gaze. “Since by the end of things we were in such a rush.”

It’s true—it seemed a dash from place to place at the time, hardly settling before the next call to arms. A far cry from those earliest days when they were still casting about for a solid path to tread. “So, am I to keep watching?”

Balthier groans in open pleasure in response, rolling his hips up into his own hand. His head rolls back against the edge of the tub, revealing the temptation of his pale throat, flashing as he swallows before giving his answer. “You may continue as you were. I’ve missed your hands.”

Basch switches legs and curls his fingers into the tense muscle, feeling the slow waves of tension building and releasing in Balthier’s body. His own cock is hard from the sight and feel of Balthier slowly bringing himself to pleasure for Basch’s benefit. He’s always carried his tension in his legs, corded up in his calves and thighs, and Basch knows well enough that relaxing them into softness always gets Balthier in a mood. 

Between these pleasures he doesn’t take long to reach his peak, pushing his hips up to the grip on his cock, holding low and tight and gasping his release in soft, breathy cries. Basch reaches to get Balthier by the shoulder and pulls him against his chest, getting his hand over Balthier’s on his softening cock and squeezing, while Balthier catches his breath. He paints small gasps at the over-sensitive sensation against Basch’s ear, heated breath and vulnerable sighs that seem to surge electric against Basch’s skin.

“That’s a sight,” Basch murmurs. Balthier’s warm and wet and solid against him. His fingers lightly map the new scars on Balthier’s back, gentle until Balthier bites him for it.

“I won’t break,” his voice is still rough with the aftermath of his pleasure, and yet sharp with reproach. Basch supposes he _had_ been wondering if it would hurt Balthier when he moves or stretches wrongly.

“I know,” Basch answers, softly. “You’re too stubborn.”

Balthier is pressed bonelessly against Basch’s chest, relaxed and easy, so Basch feels the sigh when it gathers in Balthier’s chest and then emerges against the wet skin of his neck, causing a reflexive shiver. It’s deeply comforting to feel the man alive and near, a memory of their times and struggles to get here. 

At last, Balthier gets up and Basch follows him out of the deep bathing basin, reaching back to drain the remains of the water. “Shall I have dinner sent up?”

Balthier passes Basch one of the thick, luxurious towels conferred on him by his inherited position. It’s plush and soft against his skin, but he regrets that drying himself scrubs the memory of Balthier pressed against him from his skin.

“I’m famished,” Balthier purrs. “And a meal in good company is better eaten.”

* * *

1.2

In the morning, Balthier is gone but the remains of him linger in the faint madhu-headache and sore feeling in Basch’s body, the lingering scent of cologne in his sheets and the comfort of spending hours in pleasurable company.

He finds he doesn’t mind the way his staff seems perplexed by his actions the evening before. It will not be the most unusual thing a staff in Archades has to adapt to this week. There are far more secrets in the monied and privileged classes than are strictly necessary. It is a place where even something as simple as a mutual affair between unattached adults might provide an opportunity for leverage or blackmail. It is a major failing of a society focused exclusively on the personal paths to glory.

He feels immediately both tired and reinvigorated to face the new day of debates. He considers his reflection—the shortened hair cropped close and his beard shorn near. Every day by four in the afternoon it has made a valiant effort at a return, but today as every day he shaves clean. It is too hot beneath the helmet for any further hair than is strictly necessary, and even the cooler climes in Archades cannot much help the warmth.

“Your coffee, sir,” Dyce sets the tray down on a decorative table that seems to exist solely for servants to place trays with his needs on. At first, Basch had put a basket for his correspondence there. It was quickly whisked away and Basch eventually found it on his desk—Dyce’s hand forcing a sense of Archadian order on his life that Basch has done little to resist. It seems unworth the trouble.

“Thank you, Dyce,” Basch can almost see the need for questions in the man, as he wipes the last of the shaving foam from his cheeks with a towel left warm for him. He lets Dyce wait for it, staying nearby with the practiced tickling at the awareness, like flies on the Nebra. Basch waits until he’s finished, curious if the man will ever relax enough to simply ask when they are alone together. He gets so far as to pick up the delicate cup of coffee—hardly a sip for a man who spent his life as a soldier—and the filigree handle is, as ever, dwarfed by his fingers. He has not convinced the man to serve it in bigger vessels, but at least now he brings up the entire gleaming silver carafe, rather than forcing Basch to summon him every five minutes to refill his thimble-sized cup. He drinks; Dyce waits. Finally, Basch concedes defeat.

“Is there something else, Dyce?” Basch refills his own cup and watches the man re-animate.

“Your… visitor,” Dyce says, carefully. “Are we to expect him again?”

Basch struggles for a moment to remember the cover he offered the previous evening, and then hesitates. He has been so relieved to see Balthier again in the first place, so enwrapped in the breezy ease with which Balthier conducts his entire life, that Basch hasn’t considered the idea that things are much changed. _Will_ he ever see Balthier again? Yesterday had not the flavor of a goodbye, and so Basch decides to bet on what he would like the answer to be. Likely, yes. But when, and how often…?

He finishes his second ‘cup’ of coffee with the plummeting in his mood becoming visible, he thinks. He is learning much of repression and control, but he has not mastered it yet. “He would not serve as an adjunct, but his skills are useful to me still.”

Basch considers how best to smooth this wrinkle and decides at last, his pause apparently heavy enough to hold Dyce quiet until he assembles the words. _Best to imply rather than make a direct statement that might later prove false._ “He is to be welcomed when he arrives and the manner of his entrance and arrival is not over-important. He carries sensitive information for me, at risk to himself. At times, there may be another with him. A woman.”

He leaves quiet that she is a Viera—word has little traveled beyond Rabanastre of the true heroes who prevented the fall of the Bahamut at the presumed cost of their own life, but ears in Tsenoble are sharp.

“Is he to be trusted alone in your rooms?”

Basch laughs. “Yes, let him wait where he pleases. See to his comfort. If he asks, food and wine should be delivered.”

“Should we expect that to be frequent?”

“I doubt it.”

“Very well. I’ll make sure Millicent is aware.” 

Basch pours himself another cup and wonders if he’ll ever get used to needing a staff to run his home and keep his secrets. “Convey my apologies that she took such a fright.”

Dyce looks briefly—very briefly—irritated. “I shall confer them.”

He reads further that she might be chastised for her outburst and Basch reaches out to clap a companionable and restraining hand on Dyce’s shoulder, enduring the man’s displeased look for the break in etiquette. “Don’t be too hard on her—even the best of us can be startled by something unexpected—and my…”

Basch hesitates on ‘friend’, and that’s the moment he realizes that it’s only been a year in Archades and it’s already gotten to him. He is even protecting secrets from the one man who knows the truth of who he is. Even then, it seems a sacrilege to call it less than it is, and more than he knows Balthier would like to define it. “My informant thrives on making an impact. I’m sure she’ll handle it better when she’s expecting it.” 

Basch _hopes_ anyway. If Balthier figures out she’s the sort to scream every time he gets the drop on her, Basch thinks his peaceful estate is likely to suffer.

“I don’t suppose your _informant_ can be convinced to use the front door,” Dyce ducks out from under Basch’s palm and steps back a respectful distance. “Or even in through the kitchens like a proper spy?”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Basch says, though he doesn’t know when he’ll next have the opportunity.

* * *

1.3 

It takes more time than he’d like to talk the council of judges out of more drastic action on the matter of the stolen papers. The recently appointed magisters are eager to make a tough stand on some matter and leave their marks writ in history. Zargabaath is the most tenured in the room and it’s a strange combination of feelings for Basch to be grateful for his level headedness and dry practicality prevailing over the others.

“Sir,” Dyce greets after the fourth night in debate has finally laid the matter to rest. “You’ve been requested by his Imperial Highness, the Emperor-Incumbent.”

Basch is tired, but curious—Larsa has frequent need of him still, but usually it does not extend to a requested meeting after suppertime. “I can make ready and attend within the hour.”

“The missive stresses you needn't go on full formality.” Dyce delivers this with a restrained distaste—the arcadian dislike of anything done without full pomp and circumstance. Basch is glad to hear it. He can get out of the formal dress the judges have allowed for the extension meetings. Even this—getting out of the full of their clanking suits of armor and full battle-parade regalia—had required a full and formal vote from all included that it would serve to the betterment of their discussions.

The rigid and starched fabric of their full command uniform regalia has provided little relief, especially against the old and stiff scars on Basch’s back. Dyce takes the heavy coat from Basch. 

“Something soft, then,” he says, and hates admitting his endurance has reached an end to Dyce. He always suspects the man thinks less of him than he had Noah.

“I’ve readied your silks.”

Basch wonders when that will stop sounding like a veiled insult and as he ascends the stairs upward, he considers what sort of bureaucratic nightmare it would take to petition for a change in closed-meetings attire for the Magistrate’s council legal.

 _Perhaps I could just effect the change through manifestation_ . His silks are laid out on the bed and as he pulls them on, his eyes wander almost hopefully to the chair he'd found Balthier occupying earlier in the week. Empty, but the ending of the warm season means that a fire’s kindling has been laid in the ‘place, promising an early start to the chill Archadian nights. _Though perhaps it is early yet in my career as Gabranth to effect such a change through blunt scandal._

When he’s dressed, Basch goes out through the royal way—a network of secret passages set into the infrastructure of Tsenoble. Supposedly, they are close-kept secret, but if Basch has to venture a guess, this is how Balthier made his entrance into the estate. The way _is_ carefully patrolled by the judge corps and palace guard both, depending on how near one drew to the palace. Basch remembers that Balthier—in a former life and by another name—had served amongst their number. Perhaps that was worth looking into. Those that might have the knowledge to use such sensitive information against Archades is a potential he should be aware of. 

Yet, how many former judges became Sky Pirates? Only the two—and both have proved hero enough in Basch’s eyes that he would trust them with the royal ways and argue for them to transverse them however they liked. After all, the worst mischief that Balthier might get up to is thieving—and would that more pirates had such a code when they sought out targets.

He finds Larsa in his offices, and even a year has given the young emperor six inches in height and a lengthening of the bones that suggests he will grow taller still. Larsa looks up from his papers and smiles, and Basch feels some of the concern for this clandestine meeting flee him.

“Judge Gabranth,” he greets, fondly. There are still the listening ears of the guard Basch himself insists on, both by the Royal Way entrance and at attention just outside the door. Larsa turns to the pair that have fallen into escort Basch inside and nods gratefully. “You may wait just outside, thank you for your service.”

They step out again, and the secret panel closes to reveal what looks an unbroken line of bookshelves. “Good Evening, Emperor-Incumbent.”

“Please,” Larsa laughs, and there is still the too-oft remnant of the break in his voice that has plagued him these last few months of trying to be taken seriously. “We are by ourselves.”

“Lord Larsa, then,” Basch allows, cautiously.

“Good enough my friend,” Larsa has come to substitute this for Basch’s real name, or the too-oft repeat of the title he has borrowed. “I’ve called you for a frank discussion of our troubles.”

“Which in particular?” Basch wonders, though he has a suspicion. 

“The break in at Draklor,” Larsa cuts to business now that he has established the informal tone of the meeting and can approach the subject head-on without giving offense by failing to make an offering to ritual and politeness. “How sure are you that it is a mystery?”

Basch hesitates, now stuck firmly in the web of Archadian politics. He comes at the issue obliquely and lets Larsa take the lead. “Little mystery, my lord—some thief or sky pirate has seized an opportunity.”

“I had wondered if that wasn’t likely,” Larsa says with a twinkle in his eye. “One of the younger Judge Magisters came to me with a concern that you were doing your best to minimize the situation.”

“Should I change course?”

“No, I think your prudence is correct. I just wanted to confirm with you that you have little concern about the worth of what was stolen to whatever vagrant has stolen it.” Larsa delivers the epithet with a smile that is equal parts fond and puckish. _He knows—or suspected and now I have confirmed for him—exactly who is behind this._

“I do not think we will find it put to use against us or our efforts at peacemaking,” Basch says. It is infuriating how much they must talk around the subject. Yet if he has learned anything from Dyce’s careful tutoring it’s that there is nearly always someone listening in Archades. Especially in Tsenoble herself, the core of interest.

“This puts me at ease,” Larsa says, and he does not append a name either to this but looks Basch in the eyes instead. “I did not give much credence to the complaint. Youth and freshness to a position usually means some pain of growth before it can properly adjust to the wearer.”

“Yes, my lord.” Basch understands this to mean that Larsa doesn’t think the grievance was brought forth out of malice. Rather it came in good faith. “I hope you were able to reassure them of my good intentions.” 

“It took some doing,” Larsa admits, with a slightly sheepish grin. “This goes not beyond the walls of this chamber but I at times regret the haste that was required in filling the magisterial seats.” 

With nearly all of the Judge Magisters dead and the Imperial fleet in a flux after their losses it had become of dire importance to restore order as quickly as possible. Basch and Larsa both had feared a splintering of the military into a faction or factions that desired to continue the conflict with Rozzaria.

“What’s done in the moment of heat might be carefully undone at a later date.”

“Not without much negotiation and appeasement.” Larsa sighs. “But you speak true. We must needs only reach a point of stability to negotiate from.”

Basch nods. He senses an end to the meeting, a short touch-base where he could for once be known as himself. He suspects that these will grow scarcer as Larsa finishes the re-election and appointment of a council, and ascends to proper Emperorship.

“Is that all, my lord?”

Larsa hesitates. Basch rides it out with patience. Finally, he sits at his desk, indicating a shift in conversation. “How have you been faring here, my friend?”

It is a big question. Basch has barely had the minutes to himself over this last long year—how the time has _flown_ —to consider it. Larsa gives him leave to sit in the chair across from him with a gesture and Basch takes the seat. He has to force himself to do more than perch at the edge of it, and the minutes or hours spent here eat away at his chance for sleep, but he knows better than to protest.

“Since my return,” Basch begins in the standard way. He spent three weeks training to his brother’s habits in secret while a story was constructed at court to explain the absence, the scar, and Basch’s rougher voice. It had taken time to smooth the habitual accent of Landis-faded into Dalmascan into Noah’s clipped, perfectionist Archadian. Basch is told Noah had dropped all traces of Landis within weeks of his arrival, making quick to forget and faster to fit in.

It still plagues Basch if he has gone too long without speaking to hear the changes in his voice. He does not find comfort in the false trappings of his Imperial duty.

“Yes, I know your duties have been immense,” Larsa says, when Basch falls into silence instead of answering. “I hope I have not overtaxed your tireless stamina.” 

“No, Lord Larsa,” Basch answers immediately.

Larsa looks him in the eye, frankly. “Then how _have_ you been?”

 _Lonely_ , Basch thinks. But for the comfort of Penelo’s occasional letters and Balthier’s mischievous breeze-through in his life, there has been little left to him of the strong friendships made in the course of their journey. Yet, it was Basch himself who once had vowed to suffer any hurt, or lift any load for peace, that those younger might know it. “I have been well. There is much to do, of course, but the challenge keeps me busy.”

“And is ‘busy’ and ‘challenged’ all you’d _like_ to be?” Larsa presses. “I appreciate your service, and what you’ve given to this point. I do not intend that your loyalty should be rewarded only with an abundance of service and duties.” 

“Of course not, my lord,” Basch does not hesitate to reassure Larsa of his commitment to the duties charged him by his brother. “It’s still early in the peace and much was disrupted in the conflict that needs reassembly as quickly as can be managed. Still more to be weeded out and removed before the upheaval has fully let go, and they become too entrenched.”

“A you say,” Larsa admits. “But it is not the rest that you’ve earned—nor fitting reward for the efforts that brought you here.”

“If it was promise of a reward that brought me, I would not be here.” Basch feels the weight of Larsa’s attention on him and while he knows Larsa is displeased with the answer, there is also nothing he can ask of the man. “I have no need for wealth, the position comes with more privilege and power than I ever desired in the first place, and I can’t imagine the juggling of any more.” 

Titles, weath, recognition—the things within Larsa’s immense power to grant—have no draw for Basch. Larsa can hardly bring an end to the loneliness that being Gabranth has laid at Basch’s feet. Time alone will draw Basch closer to some, and that the challenge of feeling so utterly different in mindset to his surrounding compatriots suggests that true friendship may be far in the future, yet.

“Well, at the least know you can ask for anything I can grant,” Larsa says. “Though I know most often what I give you is more trouble.”

“I agreed to be served so from your plate, my lord.” Basch knows that all the trouble he gets has passed through Larsa’s hands first. “And I know you already apportion my share carefully.” 

Larsa nods, apparently accepting that he won’t be anymore forthcoming with his desires. “Then you are free to go, but I hope you will consider my offer.”

Basch promises that he will, but at the moment his heart’s only desire is to settle into his own bed for a time with a novel and hot tea, forgetting his own troubles in favor of the terrible, overblown repression of Archadian romances.

At home, he reaches for the book atop the pile—and remembers it had been the same one in Balthier’s lap when he’d found the man in his quarters the other day. He settles in with the novel, feeling that clinches his suggestion and wonders what Balthier had made of the contents. 

He makes a note to ask, the next time they meet.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

2.1 Balthier

The notes he secrets away in one of the Strahl’s secret carry-holes, reams of paper in his father’s slowly deteriorating handwriting. But he cannot forget about it entirely. A month passes, slowly while he and Fran reacquaint themselves with flight and freedom. But there is little to steal in the rebuilding world that is worth more than the skystones they have worked to harvest from the creaking and leaning Bahamut. Even directly ‘neath the noses of the teams sent to first stabilize, then recover and dismantle the hulking menace to the countryside beneath.

But there is much call for the Jagd—resistant Skystone and they have banked more than even the Strahl might need for a full re-outfit . So,they wait for a buyer and find themselves with a day of leisure at Balfonheim. Balthier draws the short straw for remaining shipside to guard their take. As Fran whiles her hours away in whatever pleasurable pursuits she pleases—such has always been the understanding between them—Balthier fans himself in the cargo hold and finds he can almost _hear_ the papers calling him.

 _If only we still had our distracting companions,_ he allows before he gets up and moves the secret panel aside, _and yet I can’t put that Bergan out of my thoughts._ Surely it would not hurt to explore only that one topic. _When_ it had occurred to his father to make the experiments on the judges themselves seems deeply important to him. _Was that path the one he wanted to set me upon or some mad revenge for my betrayal?_

He shifts papers and bound volumes through his hands until he comes up with what he’s looking for—Nethicite infusion into a living soul, and all of it still tidy, bound in a folio rather than the loose pages of frantic scribbling his notes had become at the end. _Early days, then._

It makes for involved, if morose, reading. He doesn’t realize the time has passed until Fran returns, aglow with her conquests of the day. The scent of what dinner she’s brought cuts into his focus, and Balthier realizes he has been squinting in the fading light for some time unaware.

“You have been busy in my absence,” Fran says, her voice cold with distaste for the object in Balthier’s lap.

“Well, you took your time,” Balthier had been on the _verge_ of something in his reading, but not sure what yet. A second subject, much later than the original trials, if he reads his father’s code correctly. He rubs his eyes and closes the spread of pages.

“As you did when we stopped to pluck that accursed fruit to begin with,” Fran steps past him into the small cabin, ducking her head forward to spare her lovely ears from the low overhead. “I approved more of your other pursuits there.”

“It’s just curiosity,” Balthier says, stretching his stiff back out of his crouch. “I happened to think of Judges and Judgery—and that monster Bergan with his magicked bones entered on the tails of the thought. I had an academic curiosity.”

“So you decided to educate yourself on the process of creation?” Fran’s voice is cold as she draws forth the small folding table from behind their seats.

“Well, I’d have much rather engaged _in_ the _act_ of creation,” Balthier allows, to lighten the tone.

Fran does not quite snort, but the hiss of air through her teeth and mild look of disapproval in the face of his smiling frivolity has the same effect. “We both know you do not engage in _any_ act that will create anything. Come and eat.”

“You know me entirely too well, my dear.” Balthier sets the tome of notes aside, and gets to his feet to follow her back down the gangway to where she’s setting the table up so that they may eat outside of the too-warm and cramped confines of the cabin. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy what I _do_ engage in.” 

“In this case, it is better you do not,” she says. “But what did you learn?”

There is a look of plain distaste on her face that has nothing to do with the food. Balthier decides it best to make quick of the subject—remembering Mjrn and her brief possession as part of the very same experiments, like as not. “Our friend Bergan was not the only subject of the process. He was just one of the earliest.”

“It is not a comfort that there were others,” Fran produces their food from a bag in elegant paper, packed nicely. Balthier’s stomach actually rumbles as the scent of spices and bread reaches him, and when she unveils a small container with his favourite black olives with chili peppers stuffed into their pitless middles, he reaches immediately to fish one of them from the brine with his fingers and pop it into his mouth.

“The question I would ask is where they are,” Balthier says widely around his mouthful. The olive crushes pleasantly between his teeth, the base taste of it mixing with the salt-brine and bright heat of the red pepper in the middle. He chews thoughtfully. “But one was in the works even to the end, it seems, the poor bastard.”

“It is likely then that they still languish in Draklor,” Fran suggests and Balthier likes that idea not at all.

“You’d think Larsa would purge the place,” Balthier mutters, appetite beginning to fade. “What use has he for such trappings of the old Empire when he professes that he is to build anew?”

Fran shakes her head. “Eat. We will talk of such things after dinner when you will not sour both our meals.”

“As you like,” Balthier pushes it to the back of his mind and takes what Fran serves him. “How found you Balfonheim, today?”

She considers, chewing her own food. “Satisfying. There is a freedom here that there was not, when last we visited.”

“Owing much to Reddas’ bravery in destroying the Sun Cryst,” Balthier surmises. “He is well-missed here, I wager.”

“So it seems. My business did not connect me to his proteges today.”

“Your pleasure, you mean,” Balthier smiles at her; she’s lovely and radiant with the relaxed attitude she always gets after finding release to her heart’s content over the hours of the day with another woman. He has asked at times, if the tradition was one of the Viera, but she has never inclined to answer beyond one of those scolding looks of hers that always makes him feel very young. 

“As you say,” she inclines her head toward him. “But it was my turn.” 

“You took one in Archades as well,” Balthier reminds.

“My contacts there are not nearly as talented,” she says, airily. “I suppose I shall have to drag my net wider in the city if we are to become regulars there. 

“Why on earth would we?” Balthier wonders, his thoughts returning from their idle wander at her surprising words.

She looks knowing and wisdom at Balthier, and a smug smile touches the corners of her mouth, readable to Balthier only by the years of his experience with her. “It is not often you return to the bed of someone you’ve had to your satisfaction before. Yet…”

Balthier dislikes the line of reasoning _and_ her perceptions based on the length of their acquaintance. He reaches for another olive. “I return often enough to _yours_.”

The smile fades from her face only because she schools it off with her excellent control. There is a slow incline of her head to cock one ear toward him. “That is exactly what I mean.”

He mislikes the sound of that—shaking it all off as best he can—the very _idea_ now that Basch has become a Judge magister. “My dear, for once you’ve missed your mark. Basch is no longer his own man.”

“Yet you made time for him when it meant sneaking even into the heart of Tsenoble,” Fran says. “It was not merely to gloat that you could. And he has not been his own man for some time, I should think.”

“A proper goodbye, then,” Balthier says, breezily. “And a celebration of a successful heist.We need not get too comfortable in Archades ever again.”

She does not look like she accepts the answer, but lets the subject lie. It won’t be the last he hears of it, but his conviction is at least a match for hers, as ever. It’s why they are such good partners. For a time, they eat in quiet, both driven into their own thoughts. Balthier wonders again about what he might have missed in the depths of Draklor. What might still lurk there—hidden or forgotten, as Basch had been those two years in Nalbina? _Perhaps Larsa doesn’t know about it all. Who knows—when Vayne struck the council down, the whole nest of vipers stirred against itself._

What hands had machinations in Draklor and even now left strings untended, or perhaps fires banked low, waiting for opportunities where the use of them might provide a chance to advance their ambitions?

“Your thoughts have grown dark,” Fran observes. “I did not mean to upset you.”

“Not you, Fran,” Balthier shakes off his thoughts. “Your machinations are off-mark but not disturbing. No, rather—we may yet make a return to Archades after all, but not to chase our pleasure.”

“I had wondered when your taste for noble adventure would return,” Fran observes. Much as he didn’t like it, he suspects he’ll have cause to call on Basch for this.

“It vexes me at least as much as _you_ ,” he assures her.

* * *

2.2

He has dug the truth of the experiment from the scrawled pages when he returns to Basch and it’s worse than he thought. It’s only a suspicion—he doesn’t even dare speak it aloud to Fran, he just hurries their flight and brazenly lands their stolen ship in the aerodrome. 

This time he goes directly, making for the passages of the royal way with his steps urgent and Fran in quick unison with him.

“We could ask a formal audience,” she suggests.

“Better to not. It will take too long and perhaps draw attention where we don’t want it, before we want it at all.”

“The guards are looking,” Fran says, as they twist deeper into the labyrinth of halls. “Soon they are like to stop us.”

“Move as if you have a right to be here. Chin up, eyes forward. The trick of it is simply believing you have the right to use this passage. And _we_ do.”

He remembers the way to Gabranth’s door, the hidden portal that leads into the estate library. It’s blind on both sides, so there are no permanently posted guards—just the patrols to keep the warren of halls clear. Balthier admits them with a practiced gesture, timing it between patrols so none see them enter.

The library is well-kept, stately and—Balthier would guess—unchanged from how the previous occupant kept it. Basch has truly stepped into his brother’s shoes, but left the house around him undisturbed. At least he seems to live in his own bedroom, the small shelf there had books to his taste, as well as the romances he must be reading for his cover.

As he and Fran step in, he spares only half a thought for the advanced hour of the evening before as shriek and a clatter startles both of them, just after the portal swings closed behind them.

“Trouble,” Fran warns, belatedly.

Balthier locates the source of the uproar—the maidservant, who he’d startled the last time just as accidentally. This time, it looks like she’s dropped a duster, and she’s holding her skirts up off the floor as if he were a mouse that might sully them.

“You!” she accuses, her Archadian politeness forgotten in the extremes of her surprise. 

_Well, the whole household knows now. Curse high-strung servants._ But he can’t deny it’s a thrill to see the wide-eyed look she’s wearing try to fade to consternation while her heart is still likely racing from the shock.

“Will you tell Magister Gabranth we’re here to see him, please?” Balthier asks, smoothly. He smiles in his most charming mode. “We can wait for an audience here.”

The maid gapes at him like a Ridorana cod, and he’s aware that Fran steps up behind him to lend the weight of her cool stare to his expectant smile.

“It’s… late, and you’re—” she tries.

Balthier smirks more brightly at her. _Just play it like you belong here._ “I’ve come into some unexpected information. The Magister will want to have it quickly.”

For a moment, Balthier wonders if her reaction could possibly be related to discretion. “Is he in?”

She closes her mouth at last with a click of her pretty, straight teeth, and nods. 

“Then do go and get him. We’ll be just here.”

She seems finally satisfied at the urgency of his message—just as other servants begin peering in. The maidservant scuttles out, and Balthier finds the chairs arranged artfully for sitting amongst the stacks and tall shelves, hoping that by remaining visible no one will suspect him of thieving.

Fran leans next to him, tellingly silent and he indulges the tail end of his earlier thought. _Could her reluctance to disturb him be because he has company?_ There is a flash of _something_ in Balthier’s depths at that, but he does not indulge it. _If so, good for him. There’s damnably little else to do to let the pressure out in this nest of peacocks._

Basch himself appears with a sleep-clouded face and his maidservant still trying to press a robe onto his bare shoulders—apparently his silken pajama bottoms are not enough for her Archadian sense of modesty. He lets her hang the robe on his shoulders, and commands them bring a proper tea, rubbing one sleep-hazed eye.

“Sorry to wake you,” Balthier says. “You made it down faster than your usual sluggish mornings.”

“I was roused by Millie’s distress,” Basch says, swinging the library door closed again behind him. “But I admit I didn’t expect you to return so soon, either. And Fran, you look well.”

“We came from Balfonheim with all haste,” Fran says, by way of explanation. “Can we speak at will, here?”

“As much as we may anywhere,” Basch answers. He yawns anew and finally approaches. He looks tired—not quite sleepless but as if he has had many short nights of rest. “What troubles you?”

“Balthier has been reading his spoils.” Fran says.

“How thoroughly have you been through the Draklor laboratories?” Balthier asks, to cut off her ire.

Basch grows more serious and joins them at the circle of chairs, dragging them into a closer alignment. Balthier wonders if it’s the first change he’s made to the room since coming into possession of the house. “We commissioned a full report from the de-facto heads of the laboratory team. Doctor Cid left quite a legacy… we are still going through it.”

“But you have not gone through the facilities yourself?” Balthier presses, immediately concerned.

“No, Lord Larsa ordered the cessation of all work that could safely be ceased until a commission could be assembled to discover which projects should be shut down permanently. Finding a qualified board that can be trusted not to use the opportunity to forward their own special interests or play petty games with the influence has been… difficult. It seems there’s hardly an influential family in all the Empire without ties to Draklor.”

“Don’t I know it,” Balthier mutters. He scrapes his gaze across the elaborately tiled floor to the unlit fireplace—it is directly below the one in Basch’s bedroom and shares a chiminea.

“What is it that concerns you, Balthier?” Basch presses. “Draklor has troubled all of our thoughts—bold of you to return when the ink on your bounty has only just dried by the way—but what dues have you here at this unkind hour?”

“The human experiments, Bas—Judge Magister,” Balthier catches himself carefully before he finishes Basch’s name. “Those of the like that created Bergan—the combination of body and nethicite.” 

Basch goes still. In the quiet, a timid knock sounds at the door. The tea, Balthier remembers. He sits back in his chair, and Basch rouses himself to retrieve it. Balthier sees him school the shaken expression off his face before he answers the door. _Archades has changed him._ He takes the tray at the door, thanks the servant and sends them away. 

“You keep your servants late,” Balthier observes as Basch sets the tray between them. The red-brown tea in the perfectly clear glass pot promises to be excellent. One thing Balhtier misses in the world at large is proper Archadian tea. He pours for himself as soon as the tray is settled, then for Fran and Basch next to cover for the eager gesture.

“It is apparently a holdover,” Basch says simply. “They are here at all hours in shifts. Dyce put Millie on the late rotation after her outburst on your first visit.”

“She does seem excitable,” Balthier has a long sip of tea. They are not here to discuss servants, however. It shouldn’t surprise Balthier that Gabranth kept staff at all hours. He knows that Gabranth had a reputation as a taskmaster, even when Balthier had been amongst the numbers of the Judges (in Zargabaath’s division, blessedly.) “Nevermind. Are there any _men_ still languishing in Draklor?”

“I—had thought those experiments concluded.” Basch looks tired, balancing his tea in his hands without yet taking a sip. “We have forbidden human testing, but I was led to believe that was more a formality.”

Balthier’s hopes stir, some. “Did they bring any out, when that happened? There was testing as recently as in the aftermath of the destruction of the Leviathan and the Eighth Fleet.”

“What…?” Basch sets down his tea again, untouched. “Do you think there are still men in there? Being used?”

Balthier can feel Fran’s eyes on him, now. He has stuck on this point for some several days, until it became clear in his thoughts. “There are notes that indicate that two survivors of the Eighth Fleet explosion were subjected to the neticite imbuement process. In an attempt to strengthen them enough to survive their injuries and answer questions about…”

Basch sits forward, sharply. “ _Who?_ ”

Balthier’s laugh sounds brittle even to him. “That’s just it—I don’t know. But I don’t know if I bank anything on coincidence anymore, either.”

“Regardless,” Basch gathers himself together, pushing back from the edge of his seat and seeming to ground himself back into practicality. “You think they’re still imprisoned in Draklor? After all this time?”

“It’s worth looking into. I have a suspicion that they let nothing go, and this was _someone’s_ pet project.”

“There are a lot of those. I wonder if they would continue if that someone died or lost favor in the Imperial court?” Basch reaches up in an absent gesture and runs his hand through his sleep-mussed hair as if to tame it to order for the very-same court.

“Perhaps the extra weight and hidden secrets have been discarded,” Fran says, with a toss of her head. “A fool's errand it might be, but check we should.” 

“She's right. On the off chance that someone _has_ kept the project going, waiting to leverage a new patron… or even that they’ve just forgotten their pets down there.” Balthier hardly likes the thought, but it is a distinct possibility. “It’s high time it was all gone through anyway. There’s secrets upon secrets in that place.” 

“Do the notes indicate where they were kept?” Basch finally takes a sip of his tea. “Sweeping the entire facility is a staggering job, and will have to be completed quickly by people who we trust.”

“ _And_ if you want to be sure nothing is hidden away or destroyed, you’ll go without warning,” Balthier adds. “No idea of _where_ they kept their subjects, but if I had to venture a guess, below ground in the basement levels.”

Basch absorbs the information with a sigh. “Away from the light and hard to escape, where the very depths would swallow their screams...” 

Too late, Balthier realizes that he has not brought uncomplicated news to Basch—that the unraveling and untangling of it will likely bring him a good deal of distress. Especially given—well, Balthier suspects that few of the subjects held within the confines of Draklor and used to further their knowledge do so of their own accord. They are prisoners and it’s likely that if they find any they’ll find some who the empire has held in darkness half-forgotten as Basch had been those years at Nalbina. 

“We can assist,” Balthier offers casually. Fran turns her gaze slowly and icily onto the back of his neck by the sudden prickling sensation he feels there, but he is sure that her anger stems only from him taking liberties with her time that he has not first discussed with her. “In disguise, of course.”

“You’ve gone to a good deal of trouble just to bring me this information.” Basch is as ready to shoulder every heavy burden in his path by himself, as always.

“And _now_ my curiosity is piqued. We should move quickly. And I’m sure the Emperor-elect will want to know,” Balthier says. “How _is_ the last Solidor doing, these days?”

“He has grown some six inches this year,” Basch says and though he looks tired Balthier can see some pride on his features. Basch seems to relax some with the change of subject, drinking his cooled tea with renewed interest at last. “And he figured you out. You could have waited some after Lady Penelo’s letter…” 

“It would hardly have been any more of a surprise, even then,” Balthier rolls his eyes. “But good that he hasn’t lost that edge to his wit. He’ll need it to survive. Have there been…”

There’s no polite way to put it. Balthier goes for the direct, instead, flying in the face of Archadian propriety. “Attempts on his life?”

“Just one, in the near-aftermath of, well, everything,” Basch reveals. “A son of one of the council members, seeking revenge for Vayne’s gutting of the institution. And that doesn’t leave this room.”

“Surprising,” Balthier says. “Vayne must have caught more snakes in his viper trap than you would guess.”

“Just a shame the snare didn’t close on the biggest snake of them all,” Fran adds, nudging Balthier. “If we are to raid the darkest basements of Draklor on the morn, then we should away to rest.”

She’s right, though Balthier finds himself caught up in the relations with Basch and—disturbingly—comfortable in his presence. _It has hardly been a month since last we renewed our acquaintance,_ he scolds himself.

“I have many arrangements to make,” Basch apologizes. “But—you two can stay if you like. There are guest quarters and my staff can be trusted to keep your presence secret while you rest.”

Balthier glances at Fran though it’s his inclination to disagree and be contrary about it. He _is_ tired, however, and at this late hour arranging a room will be tricky. They _can_ always stay on the Strahl if it comes to it, but the cramped sleeping quarters are meant more for one at a time and Fran never enjoys folding herself to fit.

“We will say,” she says, and as ever, it’s her vote that decides.

* * *

2.3 

As Basch promised, Larsa _is_ taller, and his voice has gone deeper. He has the damnable good grace and good luck not to have his voice crack every few seconds as Balthier’s had at the age, and he tries not to hold that against the young Emperor-Incumbent. There is much to discuss anyway. 

“So you are saying there might still be prisoners of war held in Draklor’s depths?” he asks. It’s earlier the next morning than Balthier cares to be awake, but he must admit the news takes precedence over catching up on the sleep that delivering it cost him. 

“I strongly suspect that it won’t be the only unpleasantry discovered if you were to tour the place personally and unexpectedly,” Balthier says, stifling his yawn with the strong Archadian coffee, made tolerable to his palette only by a liberal application of fresh cream. “But there is much hidden in her depths.” 

“And how come you to this conclusion?” Larsa wonders though the question is clearly rhetorical. “You know we’ve bounty out for a break-in only the month past…”

“And yet no mention of the worth of any spoils taken,” Balthier answers. “Wise. You wouldn’t want anyone to know how spilled the state secrets were.”

“Nor to get the thought to hunt for them in the pockets of a sky-pirate that I still consider a friend,” Larsa answers. 

“Well then I haven’t seen any secrets, but perhaps I have spoken to the one who made the foray.” Balthier lies easy in the company of princesses and Emperors. ”Beyond that, I have a hunch.”

“I am inclined to act on it anyway. Long have I wondered if we received a truthful report from that hornet’s nest—or perhaps I can liken it better to a hive of ants,” Larsa looks at Basch “do you trust your division to handle this, Judge Magister?” 

“The ninth has had few enough dealings with Draklor that I can likely assemble a team,” Basch says. “Though it will come down to ties of family in the end, I expect.” 

“As does it all here in the capital,” Larsa says. “If i did not expect it would result in destruction of evidence—and subjects—that we wish to recover, I would order the immediate cessation of activities.”

“Could you not then arrest those responsible?” Basch asks, though he looks pained. “Surely they would not so brazenly ignore the orders of an emperor?”

“I am still only the Emperor incumbent,” Larsa says. “Until we can re-establish a council to recognize the voice of the people. I will not repeat my brother’s mistake and rush things in my favor.”

“I never supposed you _would_ , yet surely they can at least lift their heads to feel which way the wind is blowing?” Balthier can’t believe there is anyone out there who would bet against Larsa’s eventual entitlement. It would take a dedication to blindness— _or,_ he supposes, _the intent to do him harm and see that he does not reach his potential._

He does not regret washing his hands of this damned place.

“I will not risk it. I would have many questions too, for a survivor of the Leviathan.. Though they are mostly academic at this point.” Larsa shifts in the chair behind his overlarge desk. There is much thought on his face. “And as you suspect it might be a friend…”

“No way to know,” Basch says quickly. Balthier suspects he’s tempering his own hope. “But I would not suffer that unknown fate on anyone, friend or even foe.”

“A damned weak heart for a Judge Magister,” Balthier can’t help but observe. “And that’s a due change around here if you ask me.”

“I agree,” Larsa says. “Just tell me what you need.”

Basch's features betray some urgency and he leans back in thought. “Balthier and Fran have agreed to come. I’d like their eyes on this and while I have a cover for Balthier, I’m afraid Fran is a little harder to…”

“Think you a Viera would not make a judge?” she demands, a sharpness in her tone.

“It has not happened before,’ Basch soothes. “Balthier we may hide in full armor, but I would not be so unkind to your ears, Fran.”

She looks somewhat appeased and then turns to Larsa. “Perhaps the empire hires from outside its limits now, when a specialty of skill is required?” 

“No one can sense Mist like a viera,” Balthier agrees.”It would be a wise addition to a search team given the nature of the experiments hidden away in the depths.”

“We will lose the element of surprise on the highest levels,” Basch says, sounding tired. “There is naught for it—we can only trust so many, and as such the whole place is overlarge to search in just one heavy sweep. We must risk losing one end or the other. You’re sure the basements are the most likely?” 

Larsa turns his regard to Balthier as well,and with the pressure on him he feels only more resolve. “It is where best kept secrets always are—well away from light or a chance to escape. It’s all a warren down there, worse even than the parts we climbed to reach our goal the first time we came up against Draklor.” 

“Then the matter is settled,” Larsa says. “You have my blessing—and I'll sign your blank writ of investigation. Best we brought all that lies beneath the surface of Draklor to light and then perhaps shut the whole dangerous affair down.”

“It would be a fine coronation gift for the Lady Ashe,” Balthier says. He can hardly say he will miss the damnable place. “And let everything else Doctor Cid wrought be dismantled.”

“I would not suspect that my fleet captains will again let go their hold on the Nethicite-wrought skystone,” Larsa sighs. “But as to the rest…”

“Well, I wash my hands of it,” Balthier agrees.

* * *

2.4

The affair itself is an arduous one, involving long hours and searching in what Balthier grows to fear will be a fruitless effort, as the armor’s weight and constriction weighs Balthier down and wears on his endurance He has not worn anything so heavy for years, and though this time they are not fighting guards at every turn, the pace is quick of a necessity and danger seethes around them anyway.

Twice, a zealous scientist must be apprehended when they refuse to produce their work on demand, leaving no explanation for—entirely too much for Balthier’s taste. Basch, wearing the heavy-horned helm of Gabranth with his back and shoulders braced straight into the command, shows no sign of tiring even as Balthier sweats and sags into his borrowed padding.

On the lowest level, they face armed resistance, and Balthier actually welcomes it— the chance to beat his frustrations out against this last die-hard faction of loyalists to whatever lost cause they hold dear. They seem surprised when Fran unleashes her magicks, though they are dulled from the nethicite that seems wrought right into the very walls of the place. Basch smashes into them with a ferocity that makes him seem well suited to the Judge’s position, and when three have fallen never to rise again, the rest throw down their arms.

Beyond them a corridor full of cells and the shouting of confined men for mercy. It’s not just Humes they find, here—two moogles, a nu-mou, a Viera and even some of the more-intelligent monstrous races. The scent of it all together is rough and zoo-ish, even to Balthier’s senses. He can’t imagine what it must be for Fran’s.

Basch presses his helmet near to the barred windows of each cell before either commanding it to be opened or leaving it closed in the case of beasts or hostiles. Balthier comes behind to double-check. At the third from the last door, Basch goes still.

Down here the corridors are dark, the halls cut from the sandstone itself rather than built up. The cells are dark inside as well, and even magicks only light so deep—but in this one crouches a hume male, the only one not clamboring even weakly for his own release. He sits well-back from the light, and yet in build and attitude—his head is roughly shorn of hair, but shows dark stubble—he is recognizable.

“Vossler,” Basch calls, softly.

The reaction is subtle, a ripple through the hanging shoulders. When Vossler looks up, his eyes burn bright and angry into the visor of Balthier’s helmet, and he’s not sure the defiance and anger will cease when Basch reveals his face or the truth of things. But it _is_ Vossler. There’s no mistaking his sun-dark skin or the stormy brow set over his aquiline nose. The fire alive in his eyes suggests that this has either left him mad or utterly unbroken. 

“Go on and leave me,” Vossler answers. “I will fight you if you free me.”

Basch steps back. “Open this door.”

Vossler gets to his feet, leering. He is—whole, for a certain definition of the word. Balthier can see even from here the gleaming-silver lines of scar where the Nethicite was infused into his wounds. He recognizes the deep cut to Vossler’s shoulder as the one Basch left in that final fight, now healed into a corded mass. It is a rough healing, but he stands on it and holds himself like he can still fight.

Idly, Balthier finds his own hands itching from the injuries Vossler had levied against _him_ in that fight, the balance of hurts returned to their maker. He does not enjoy the idea of having to subdue the man, now enhanced in strength and magicks by the infusions.

He is tense when the door opens, but Balthier defers to Basch in this. They are friends, after all. Or were, once. He stays ready. When the door swings wide, Basch makes quick to pull his own helmet off, while standing in the full of the light. Vossler looks—then looks again, and he must catch sight of the scar and draw the significance of it to his own conclusion, because he does not charge.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**3.1 Basch**

“I can scarce believe it and you had warned me,” Basch confesses in his quiet conspiracy. In the other room, the rinse water runs long and the remains of a meal that Vossler had set upon like a starving cur are spread on the tray brought up from the kitchens.

Balthier is still in his judge’s armor, sitting heavily in the chair by the fireplace where he had first occupied. Behind him, Fran stands at the window politely as possible, breathing clean air that does not hold the stink of filth and confinement. The pirate has his legs kicked out straight to avoid the pinch of plates against his knees or in the creases of his groin. He is apparently too-tired yet to strip anything but the helm. “I’ve told you I was highly suspect that we wouldn’t find it a coincidence, but even I didn’t dare believe it until I had the truth in my grasp.”

“He is outwardly the same in ways,” Fran says, her gaze distant and wandering as she peers through the windows into the city around them. They have been all day at their task and the sun had set even before they ran up against the resistance in the subject ward (as Basch has come to learn it was called) and in sorting things—accommodations, food, clothes, and a chance to interview those freed so they might return to their lives. And to be sure those responsible could be ferreted out and removed, subjected to the process of law—if they hadn’t been already. “But there is much changed about him.”

“He’s certainly not any better _smelling_ ,” Balthier agrees, rudely. “And the wounds were closed through with Nethicite. That’s what kept him alive long enough to heal them and answer their questions. But what else has changed… that’s a question.”

Basch knows Balthier is right, but there is still an immense and surprising relief to find his old friend alive. Much has changed—and much yet will, but—Vossler has been a constant in his life that he thought he’d laid to rest after their conflict aboard the Leviathan. After the differences, now he’s not sure he can hold against the man. So here’s one new thing to discover, though Vossler has not yet said a word.

“We’ll see,” Basch says, his eyes trailing to the closed door of the bathing room and the faint curls of steam pouring from beneath the door. It’s not a change that Basch anticipated, but…

“You were right,” Basch says, looking back to Balthier to see that man’s fine aristocratic features betray no satisfaction in that. Instead, his dark eyes look tired and the flush of heat from being too long in that judge’s armor makes the scar vivid and pale on the side of his neck.

“I don’t take any pleasure in it,” Balthier says, quietly. “But I’m glad to see an end to men in cages at the whims of others.”

Basch has to agree. He closes his eyes on the sight, and then opens them again to get to his feet. “Let’s get those off.”

Balthier cocks an eyebrow at Basch alluringly, but makes no move to stand. Basch wonders if he’s being stubborn, or is too sore to get up. “With an audience, Captain? Your tastes have started to change.”

Fran snorts, and Basch feels some of the melancholy left in the room disperse at her amusement—and he feels his own smile answer. The ache in Basch’s heart changes from saddened relief at the day’s discoveries to a warmth and longing. For what, exactly, Basch can’t quite put to words. 

_For a start, I’d like to kiss him,_ Basch thinks. _In front of everyone, as he said._ He’s sure the shock would write itself into pleasure on Balthier’s face after just a moment�—but that moment would be worth it. 

“On your feet,” Basch orders, but he softens it by extending his hand. It takes all the muscle expected to lever Balthier onto his feet. Basch starts works on the straps and clasps to free Balthier from the confinement of the armor, a little mesmerized by the way his earrings swing over the high collar of the gorget, decidedly un-regulation and tempting Basch to put his mouth on them and see if twisting them in his teeth can make Balthier gasp and squirm even with all the armor on. Instead, he reins himself in and helps Balthier discard the heavy plates. Turning his thoughts back to more important matters as he lifts the weight from his friends’ frame. “Balthier, I appreciate your expertise and insight on this matter. I don’t suppose—if anything else of the same nature occurs to you, I can convince you to bring it to me?”

“That sounds almost respectable, Captain,’ Balthier teases. He turns his head to meet Basch’s gaze over his shoulder with a brilliant twinkling in his eye. “But I suppose I have a particular insight to the workings of this damnable place.”

The armor padding beneath hugs tight to Balthier’s trim waist, though in places Basch can see it’s damp through with perspiration. “Since you seem to have no trouble getting into my estate whenever you please, at least now you’ll have an excuse.”

Balthier steps forward to see the boots and greaves himself. “You should still mind your silverware. Is Azelas _ever_ going to finish? I feel quite filthy myself. A miserable choices in guises and it’s left me as dirty as I’ve felt in ages to wear it again.”

“I am sorry to see it cage you. But if you truly desire a bath your guest quarters are suitably equipped…” Basch wonders if he can tempt the pair into a second night, but the question doesn’t linger long. In the corner of his vision, he sees Fran shake her hair back from her neck, but at the tail-end of the gesture she has angled her head slightly differently, turning one ear in their direction as if she’s just as interested in Balthier’s answer as he is—and as unable to fully predict it.

“No, I think we’ve had enough Archadian hospitality for the time being,” Balthier decides. “Besides, I wouldn’t want the Emperor-Incumbent to think overlong on how I came by my information while I am not too far from his grasp, as it happens. And, surely you’ll have your hands full.”

Balthier smiles to soften the blow, but he gestures Fran along with him as he turns for the exit, cutting a fine figure in the tightly-fit armor padding. He leaves the undone armor piled in the chair, save the breastplate in Basch’s hands. “Have a good night, Captain.”

As he goes, and Fran follows him out, Basch hears the drain pulled in the tub and the slow gurgle of draining water before Vossler emerges from the other room, with the same tendency of timing he has always had. Basch sets aside the armor, piling it atop his own in one corner to be cleaned and returned to the stores. 

Vossler has shaved the day’s growth of stubble he wore, and Basch can see he’s scrubbed even the dark grime from beneath his nails, and his shaved pate is gleaming. Basch supposes it was done to manage lice—he has not the look of a man starved for a year, though his body is heavily scarred. In the deepest recesses of scar tissue, the silver fires of infused nethicite seem almost to glow faintly, and pulse in a rhythm that might match Vossler’s heartbeat.

“Well?” Vossler demands, rough-voiced and eyes burning a challenge still at Basch. “Is it ugly enough to stare?”

How many of them carry scars after their gods-ordained conflict, and how many scars were kept from the bodies of their wards or those that would come after by their actions and sacrifices? “It’s not the ugliness, Vossler, that makes me stare. It’s that I look a man in the eyes again who I would have thought a ghost.”

“I may yet be a spirit of a man, Basch,” Vossler says, and Basch gestures him to caution, going to check that there are no servants waiting beyond his chamber doors and that they are latched. Vossler finds the pile of loose clothing laid out for him and begins to pull them on with little regard for Basch’s presence. _We are still both soldiers, still._ These are nicer offerings than the clothes he was given after crawling free of Nalbina. “The scientists were sure to tell me—after they had already done this damnable thing—that such experiments usually shorten the lives of their subjects.”

“Well,” Basch says, stunned. “I’m sorry to hear it. Does it… pain you?”

“It’s worth laughing off,” Vossler continues, pulling on a pair of Basch’s soft and silken sleep pants. “It’s clearly _lengthened_ mine. I would have died on the Leviathan after the damage you dealt me. As to pain; surely… when it’s cold. What soldier can’t complain of aches?”

He gestures to the deepest and ugliest amassment of scar, a cleaved shoulder and the clavicle still faintly crooked where it had been crushed. Then Vossler quickly pulls a shirt on over his chest.

“I—am sorry.”

Vossler waves him off. “We both would have liked things to be different. For what it’s worth, I am glad that mine wasn’t the only way. I have many questions.”

“I’ll answer them as I can.” Basch gestures to the chairs by the fireplace, now with a crackling blaze in it against the chill Archadian night. “But it will be long in the telling. Can I have more food brought up?” 

Vossler settles, but only on the edge of the seat. Basch can tell he’s still feeling the confinement—this room is bigger than his cell, but… Basch can hardly forget how _he_ felt to win back his freedom. “On second thought, perhaps I can have them bring us something on the terrace?”

“I,” Vossler does not look ready to face the weakness, but after a short hesitation, he nods. “Alright.”

“I'm sorry if this seems indelicate,” Basch gestures Vossler the way downstairs and pauses to flag Dyce down for tea before they make their way out into the chilly night air. 

“ _Indelicate?_ ” Vossler scoffs. “How long have you been here?”

Basch laughs, feeling the cool night air soothe him some. It’s dark, but the stars overhead are clear and the open space of the terrace feels welcome, the last blooms of the year and the scent of woodsmoke from the neighbors chimneys feels proper and soothing after a day spent in closed corridors breathing stale and antiseptic air. “Alright, then—how did you get out?”

“Ghis,” Vossler says. He breathes steam into the night air. “He was half-mad, badly burned by the seething mist and whatever else it was that came out of the engines as they went wrong. But, he had an—inhuman strength and he dragged m e from where I lay. I don’t remember much. A small ship and the violent shaking. I thought I was ready to die, anyway.”

Bash isn’t surprised. Vossler lived by his honor, he had fought by it and lost. “We made it to the last surviving ship of the 8th fleet, but he was as badly off as I. He’d breathed enough mist discharge from the Dusk sharks to keep walking, but not even what they could do here could save him. Or perhaps the very process of it overwhelmed what was left of his constitution.”

There is enough light that Basch can see the memory of a great pain in Vossler’s eyes. Then, a soft noise behind them from the house, and Dyce emerges with the tea-cart fully laden with a high Archadian teas service, and Basch finds it almost ridiculous except that he welcomes the break from such serious matters, and the chance to wet his mouth. Only in Tsenoble could one count on high tea past midnight, if one asked it. “You’ve missed much.”

Vossler watches Dyce go again, silent as he ever is with company, and nods. “Not the least of which is how you’ve come to wear this armor and title.”

“Sit,” Basch says, softly. “We will be some time in the telling.”

* * *

3.2

They both have long stories to tell, and Basch quickly sends on a letter to Ashe, through Larsa’s channels. Her coronation is quickly upcoming and though he hates to add to what’s on her plate, this is a necessity.

“It’s better this than we simply show up with him,” Larsa assures Basch as he sets his seal to the missive. “I’d rather not start off on anything but the right foot politically, and I suppose he’s a prisoner of war, in a way.”

“He’s free to go isn’t he?” Basch asks, struck by the words.

“That’s not what I meant. He _has_ been held against his will before now, and I would make amends for that as quickly as possible. I don’t want the Lady Ashe to hear about it from any other than you and myself.”

“And she may not feel so welcoming to hear the news…” Basch cautions.

“Things have changed vastly since they last met,” Larsa says, wisely. “And she has the right to know—and he to have an idea of her response—before she is crowned. I am sure that his years of loyal service will not be discarded.”

Basch nods, sure of the wisdom in the words, but he remembers how long Ashe had held onto her anger against him. Perhaps a chance to have the initial reaction to it in private is just what she needs. “If she doesn’t, for some reason, welcome him back…”

“Ser Azelas has a history of bravery and I have fought beside him, too. On our travels he proved himself... He will have a place here if he can stand it, but you and I both guess he would be happier to serve his his restoration to honor in Dalmasca.”

Basch has to agree, but—he’ll miss his friend. Vossler is some changed by his experiences, and prone to dark moods and long periods of inturned silence. When Basch can draw him out of it, it’s clear that Vossler is still more himself than Basch had been in his months after Nalbina. 

_That I emerged fully at all afterwards is… due to Balthier, and the others._ Basch remembers. The Sky Pirate had been the first to look at Basch with belief in his eyes, and then eventually... more.

“And _you_ should prepare for our trip to Dalmasca as well,” Larsa cuts into Basch’s thoughts. “Since you’ll be accompanying me in an official capacity for the coronation.”

Basch stops himself from gaping only by years of experience in the presence of royals and superior officers. “Is that a good idea? My face is—”

“Your face will only be seen by members of the close court,” Larsa continues, looking extremely pleased with himself. Basch must not have completely hidden his surprise. “I’ll need you there for my protection, and Zargabaath shall have to remain here to keep an eye on things ‘lest there be any ideas while I’m out of the city. I shall keep an escort aboard the ship, as well.”

“Yes, my lord,” Basch says, feeling rolled over as if by chocobo-and-cart.

“ _And_ you’ve been explicitly asked for. I would hardly say no to the Lady Ashelia Dalmasca on the day she is to be crowned,” Larsa displays another letter and offers it to Basch to read—though this one is official correspondence. “She’s arranged for our old friend Al-Cid to get out of the hot water he’s found himself in at Rozzaria by requesting his presence as the Rozzarian ambassador in Dalmasca as well.”

“He was in trouble?” Basch wonders if it was a scandal involving a woman. Then he scolds himself for speculating like an idle gossip.

“It seems so. The reason is yet unclear but we will find out in person, to be sure,” Larsa says, reminding Basch of the subject. “Delegations will be there from all of Ivalice as a show of support.”

“Do you worry our presence will cause any trouble for her?” Basch asks.

“We will be careful not to appear too involved,” Larsa sits back in his chair with a sigh. “Our healing must begin somewhere, and I hope to lay foundations for strong relations between us without stifling the growth and restoration of Dalmasca…”

For a moment, he is all his old ideals again, eyes bright with promise for the future. He is not yet the emperor, yet Basch cannot see it any other way. That he might feel this way about a Solidor is truly a twist of fate he could not have anticipated. Basch gets just a hint of a wistful look on Larsa’s face and supposes he knows the source of it. “And it will be good to see our friends again.”

Larsa turns a slightly sheepish look toward him, smiling behind the press of his curled fist to his mouth, aware he has been caught out. “I do miss them, I admit. It seems times won’t get any simpler.” 

“No, but we may find time and hours where they are easy again,” Basch allows. “I am sure Vaan and Penelo will be glad to see you again.”

Larsa quirks his brows, pushing his bangs back out of his eyes and Basch knows that he has struck true. He thinks of Penelo’s frequent letters and remembers—from a distance—the way love strikes in youth. Larsa clears his throat and finds it in himself to joke, “I’m not sure I gave you leave to be _quite_ so informal, Judge Magister.”

Basch smiles and straightens up into a parade rest, putting on the formality like a costume. “I’ll be glad to see them again, too.”

“It’s settled then and I’d like your help on what gesture of good faith we can make,” Larsa says, and then falls out of formality again. “And pick gifts for our friends. I wonder if Balthier and Fran will appear…?”

The musing is so close to Basch’s own about Larsa’s potential romantic interests that Basch goes still for a moment. It’s not that he’s ashamed of his arrangement—but he is not entirely sure if he can explain it to the young Emperor in solid terms even now. But Larsa continues, seemingly oblivious to Basch’s crisis of definition. 

“I owe them my thanks for the assistance with Draklor, and they were quick to disappear after our discovery,” Larsa says. “I have a suspicion it won’t be the last potential political nightmare they leave in our lap.”

“I have asked Balthier to come to me with any other potentially troublesome issues, my lord. Better to have an official contact with someone who has such insights into the many working parts of the Empire—and no personal investment in maintaining any of them.”

“It’s amazing you got an agreement out of him for anything in official capacity.” 

“Well, I left the terms entirely up to him, so if you get a bill…”

Larsa laughs. “I’ll gladly pay it, though I wonder at the price of such a sky pirate.”

* * *

3.3

The coronation itself is artfully done; a short ceremony with full Dalmascan style, but not so overblown as to bore the audience and not so heavy-handed as to leave the confidence of her position in question. She looks as radiant and beautiful to Basch as she had on her wedding day, but now now, too, she looks fierce and ready for the world. The crowd does cheer, and flowers are sent through the city; a rush of petals in the warm air that leaves Basch sweating at Larsa’s side. The damp runs in rivulets down his neck and back, pooling over his tailbone. Their pavilion is shaded, secluded back from the glare of the street, but the heat seems relentless after the cooling season in Archades. 

He has already started to become used to it, Basch realizes. It is a strange comfort to take while he keeps his back straight and sweats into his armor padding until it feels like a fine layer of wet is sticking it to every crease of his body.

“She looks wonderful,” Larsa observes, when the ceremony has ended and the streets are beginning to clear.” Though I am glad that we have time to refresh ourselves before the state dinner.”

Basch only inclines his head, sure that he’ll benefit more from a chance to bathe than the change of clothes to his formal uniform. He follows Larsa out , past several groups of well-wishers and diplomats seeking to make an opportunity for later discussion. Basch stays close at Larsa’s side while the young emperor-incumbent sheds these encounters with grace and charm. He does promise each a chance for discussion over the course of the evening. If even half of them hold him to it, it promises to be a very long night.

There are enough guards on their borrowed guest rooms, Judge and Dalmascan alike, that Basch trusts Larsa’s safety to them for the duration of time it will take them both to clean up and change. He has hand-selected from his own corps the members to accompany them here. He wonders when it won’t feel like he spends a large portion of each day either putting on or taking off armor.

His rooms are already occupied when he steps into them, Balthier draped comfortably over his chair with an open bottle of Madhu and an unbuttoned collar, both inviting options for Basch. He closes the door behind him before the guards can see, and pulls his helmet off. 

“You made it,” Basch says, feeling warmly about it. Balthier rolls his eyes toward him with a certain heaviness that suggests the glass in his hand is not his first of Madhu.

“I wouldn’t have missed it, of course,” Balthier says. ”And the lady Ashe was sure to extend an invitation as well as everyone else. It’s been extremely tiresome coming back from the dead. It seems our friend Azelas feels the same way.”

Basch finishes getting the armor off, and the cooler air begins to dry the sweat against his skin at last. He lets his gaze rest briefly on Balthier, and then he sighs.”Why is it you always look so alluring when I feel the most as if I belong in a Chocobo stall?”

“Your duty keeps you overmuch in heavy plate, Judge Magister,” Balthier observes. “I’m sure I’d rather you out of it at least as much as you would. Have a drink with me?”

Basch takes the glass from Balthier’s slightly unsteady hand, but gives in to his desire to taste the first sip from the Pirate’s lips, though when Balthier’s hands ease into his hair, it’s wet with perspiration and he cuts the kiss short. “This heat has always been brutal.”

“I never noticed,” Basch laughs. He lifts the offered glass to his mouth and finds that the Madhu is honey-sweet and just chilled, his throat is so parched that he gives in to the urge to just drink most of it down. 

Balthier watches him with bright, appreciative eyes. “You'll be joining us at dinner? As Gabranth, I assume.”

“At Lord Larsa’s side,’ Basch agrees regretfully. He starts to get to his feet but Balthier has his hand suddenly in the straps of his armor padding. “Which means I should wash up.”

“How about,” Balthier suggests, clearly in one of his moods.”You get even dirtier, first?”

Basch feels _interest_ surge through him, as Balthier pulls their mouths together again, all promise and heat as Balthier surges up out of the seat, half pulling Basch down. His mouth tastes like heat and Madhu, and with the desert dry around them it recalls to Basch their earliest tryst—Freshly escaped from Nalbina and returned at last to Rabanastre. One last night in the heat of the desert, all tents and in the morning all would again change. 

Then, he had thought it was pity. Now he knows well enough that Balthier only takes what he covets—and he has a knack for seeing through the rough to the fine stone beneath.

“Captain,” He purrs against Basch’s mouth, his breath sweet and the curve of his body supple and with a yielding quality that betrays what he truly wants. “Our time is short, isn’t it?”

“You started this, Pirate,” Basch growls, his blood already electric and alight with desire for Balthier—the pirate was always quick to demand response from Basch’s body and rarely did Basch try to deny it when they had privacy between them. How he had _tried_ at first, which only served to amuse Balthier.

“And I’ll _finish,_ ” Balthier promises, too, in that damned perfect suggestive intonation of his. “Several times, If i have my way—but for now, we have but a moment to steal, and I intend to have my way with it.”

He presses Basch back as he gets to his feet, and then claims a handhold on his hips, pushing his chest against Basch’s as his hands ucp and make rough against Basch’s ass through the leathers. He steps forward and Basch backs—though Balthier may prefer what was seen as the submissive role in bed, it was not so when he _took_ it, and Basch has always let Balthier have the lead—the role he ever laid claim to in his life—and never been dissatisfied with the results.

When he backs into the low sidebar lining one wall of the room, Balthier kisses him again and Basch with some understanding of what’s coming next praces one hand back on the bartop as Balthier makes rough with the ties of his breeks, and gets a hand inside to stroke Basch to full hardness, drawing his cock out of the confines of his pants to let it grow against his palm. Basch _groans_. It has been a busy two months since last they met, and he has not so much as taken himself in hand since. 

“I’m going to make you mine this evening,” Balthier promises, against Basch’s ear, and Basch sweeps his palm down the curve of Balthier’s lower back, always accentuated by the cut of his clothes, and onto the firm and inviting round of his ass. It’s ever a satisfying handful, and Basch upshes one knee forward as he pulls with this grip to feel how Balthier is as hard against his leg as his damnably confining pants will allow.

“Are you?” Basch grinds his thigh between Balthier’s legs, riding him roughly against the friction there to hear him gasp.

“ _Yes_ ,” Balthier’s voice—admirably—does not break, even as his clever fingers wrap firmly around Basch’s cock and squeeze hard. “I’m in a frustrated and celebratory mood, Captain. I’m going to fuck you until Im satisfied and we’re both wrung out and unfit for the next day’s duty.”

“As you said,” Basch hears how rough with desire his own voice sounds now, how suddenly weak his knees feel.”We have only some small time before…”

“Then I’ll leave you a promise for later and,” Balthier pushes himself back off Basch’s thigh slowly, patting his chest to stay when Basch tries to follow. “You may think about _this_ during your state dinner.”

Balthier drops to his knees and Basch’s gaze attaches to him like they have suddenly magnetized, his already hard cock giving an anticipatory surge just before Balthier leans in to get his lips on the head and plunging down, his mouth greedy and wet as Basch’s own goes dry around the helpless gasping this tears from him. 

He grips the bar hard enough to rattle it, and puts his free hand against his mouth first, to stifle any noise that tries to creep up and escape as Balthier opens his jaw and takes Basch deep in his velvet-warm mouth, with all the art he prides himself on. He pulls back slow, with hard suction that leaves Basch dizzy.

“Balthier,” he warns— _already_ , because if Basch hadn’t believed there was much art to the oral applications of sex before he’d met Balthier, the man _does_ art with his mouth and it feels _filthy_ every time. Basch sinks his hand into the Balthier’s hair as he makes to draw back and the approving hum along the underside of his cock wrenches a low noise from him as Basch steadies with his palm and pushes with his hips, slow but steady and without intent on being refused.

He isn’t. Balthier swallows hard as Basch hits the back of his throat and Basch penetrates him there, where he’s wet and willing, and his swallows pulse hard around the head of Basch’s cock. Release coils up in Basch’s belly fast and eager as a striking snake given the length of time it’s been since he’s cum. 

A heavy knock at the door startles both of them to stillness, and Balthier leans back quickly against Basch’s suddenly slack fingers. He paws a hand at his mouth to swipe the spit away and Basch’s mind takes longer to process the meaning of the sound. He makes a wild dive for the far side of the room, then, jamming his cock back in his pants though it leaves his palm soaked with spit and the front of his armor padding tented obviously.

“Gabranth,” a familiar voice sounds through the panel. _Vossler_ , Basch’s mind descends rapidly to stupid panic. 

“A second!” He calls back, and his voice sounds rough, even to his own ears. He’s aware of the flush on his face, of how his cock refuses to soften quickly enough. He glances back where he left Balthier, and he has quickly hidden himself behind the chairs. Basch gestures frantically toward the wardrobe.

He can barely take the time to be sure Balthier takes the suggestion; he’s drawing cold water into the ewer with the hand pump as fast as possible to splash his face, then pour rudely down the front of his pants.

“”I’ll be quick,” Vossler promises. “I’m coming in.”

He should have no argument—Vossler has seen Basch naked in bathing or changing enough that there are no surprises between them anymore. _Well,_ Basch allows, _this would be a surprise._ He strategically places furniture between himself and the opening door as it swings wide to admit Vossler.

“I had to catch you before you were trapped in a state dinner with all eyes upon us,” Vossler says as Basch does his best to play casual. A glance toward the wardrobe reveals no sign of Balthier, but the door is slightly ajar.

“How can I help you, my friend?” Basch asks, trying to _will_ the memory of Balthier’s mouth off his skin, to slow his heart rate and change the circulation of his blood. “How has your reunion gone? You didn’t return to our camp last night and I think I’d have heard if there was truly a fight.”

“Her majesty had sharp words for me,” Vossler admits. “But more, she had stories to tell and a willingness to hear my words of apology.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Basch says, and finds he is. “Will you be staying in Dalmasca?”

Vossler’s hair has begun to regrow, noticeably longer even in the week it’s been since they’d released him. It’s humanizing. He nods, and Basch tries not to indulge his feelings of sadness for losing his one steady connection in Archades. It’s best for Vossler to atone here — to stay close to the land he loves. Basch is glad Ashe will have him, he can trust Vossler.

He never wavered, He just charged up the wrong path and held on too tightly when it went wrong. It is a heavy lesson, and in those harsh scars and the inturned attitude, Basch can tell Vossler will not soon forget it. And, Dalmasca is now free from the yoke of the Empire, which had ever been his goal.

“She is re-establishing the Royal Order of Dalmascan Knights,” Vossler reveals. “I can no longer serve them, but I can train them, Gods willing.”

Basch smiles in spite of himself. “We have learned much of the Gods on this adventure of ours, my friend. Do as _you_ are willing. You were ever a strict master, but your recruits were always soundest. They will be in safe hands with you as their teacher.”

Vossler’s smile has changed— it’s heavier now than the facial expression he wore as a young knight, and it’s less bitter than his grimace as he led the resistance at Lady Ashe’s side. This Basch supposes is what saves the forged links between them. Suddenly, Vossler cocks his head, as if realizing at last he’s been standing opposite Basch and unmoving the whole time. “You’re flushed.”

Basch hesitates on the answer, and Vossler’s nostrils flare slightly, turning toward the sitting area of the room. “Have you been drinking already?”

The Madhu, Basch realizes, is still sitting open, next to Balthier’s glass, and a second—presumably set out for Basch. “Just one glass.”

“Madhu?” Vossler asks, turning his attention back to Basch with a sharp smirk. “You’re still spending too much time with that pirate.”

Basch feels this is very nearly too much. He sets to work peeling off the rest of his armor padding. “Does that mean you won’t join me for a drink, Vossler?”

“You can drink all you like at dinner,” Vossler points out.

“I had a deep thirst after standing in the sun for those hours,” Basch says. “And it will be harder to toast your new position when we must be apart for our separate roles.”

Basch finishes undressing, sufficiently calmed and collected enough to finish quickly washing up though he still curses Vossler’s timing. The cold water feels good, however, evaporating off his skin. He’s also aware of Balthier trapped in the wardrobe and he decides to speed things up.

“Here,” Basch says, refilling Balthier’s glass and pouring a measure into the other for Vossler. “To the future, may we find ourselves bored in it.”

“A curse?” Vossler asks, but he takes the glass anyway, raising it in a mirror of Basch’s gesture. “You’ve _definitely_ been spending too much time with that pirate. At least now, I don’t have to hear it from your tent.”

Basch rolls his eyes and drinks down the glass of Madhu. It’s just as delicious, the second glass. He’s glad that—after everything—Vossler is well enough to joke. He drinks, too, and for a moment, all is quiet. 

“I _am_ glad for you,’ Basch says. “Though, too, I’ll miss you.”

“Not overlong,” Vossler promises. “Her majesty is already arranging it with Lord Larsa that you’re expected to accompany as many Imperial visits as can be managed.”

Basch shouldn’t be surprised, but he is. Though they’d managed to make it to a point of understanding over the course of their journey, his vision of what comes next has been… hazy, in regards to himself. It’s easy to guess what will happen in the sweeping scheme of things, but Basch himself is unsure of his place in it. “I suppose it’s good I don’t take airsickness, then.”

“It was only _once,_ ” Vossler scolds back, but Basch laughs and then lets it fade.

 _It is not my memory anymore,_ he supposes, and finishes his drink as Vossler does the same. “I am going to be late to Lord Larsa’s side if you do not let me finish getting ready.” 

“Of course. This is an excellent vintage of Madhu,” Vossler leaves his drained glass on the table next to the decanter. “Give my regards to Balthier for it.”

Basch only keeps his reaction to that under-wraps by all of the practice he’s had in Archades. It’s only after Vossler has left that he realizes that he must have meant he expected the Madhu was a gift, not that he knew or even suspected that Balthier is immediately present in the room.

The man himself steps out of Basch’s wardrobe, fussing with his cuffs as the last part of putting himself back together. “His timing is as abysmal as it has always been.”

“You’re as sorry as I am about it,” Basch laughs, buttoning up the collar on his dress uniform. “But he sends his regards for the drink.”

“Well,” Balthier reclaims the bottle of Madhu, elegant and ring-bedecked fingers around the neck of the bottle and with a slow-stroke that intentionally expresses his internal thoughts before he lifts it to his mouth and drinks rudely from the vessel itself. “It was only meant to be a taste for later anyway.”

“I’m sufficiently whetted in appetite,” Basch says, regretfully. He’ll have to spend his evening focusing elsewhere to avoid the memory plaguing his body’s reactions. “Does that mean I can expect your return this evening?”

“You're _expecting_ me now?” Balthier answers, sharply. He is only playing at irritation yet, but Basch knows that can quickly turn true if he does not handle things according to Balthier’s preference.

“More asking if I should be sure not to invite others back here to reminisce the evening away,” Basch placates. “Of course I’d rather give all my evening hours to you.”

“Then plan on it,” Balthier says with finality, letting himself out again past the pair of silent, impassive guards still flanking Basch’s door.

* * *

3.4

Al-Cid does not quite corner them, so much as makes eye-contact with Larsa and then the pair of them are off to travel any number of subjects. Basch can hardly taste any of the excellent dinner, because two tables away Balthier is staring a hole in him, when he can find or orchestrate seconds his other companions aren’t paying attention.

Currently, with his mischievous near-yellow eyes locked on Basch’s, his mouth is being applied to pulling in fat, green olives from his fingers and Basch wonders if his lower lip isn't still just a little swollen from their earlier activities, or if his throat is still rough with it.

“Alright, enough of the past, my friend,” Larsa says to the new-minted Rozzarian ambassador. “Tell me how come you to this position?”

Al-Cid gives a heavy, theatrical sigh that lacks the artful delicacy Balthier has mastered but the two of them remind Basch of the other more often than he cares to admit. “It is not very much of a story, I’m afraid.”

“Her majesty said you had come into some trouble,” Larsa presses. 

Balthier finally looks away to answer some statement of his companions, elegant and composed, perfectly in his element in this setting and beautiful at it. His finery suits him nearly as much as Basch’s seems to stifle him.

“Her majesty is making much of a trifle in Rozzarian politics, but if you _must_ have the truth of it—there are those in Rozzaria proper who feel it best to render me physically distant from the throne. The king is hale and well, but his many sons and their many, _many_ sons—my cousins—see succession as a chocobo race and ever try to jockey closer.”

“And you were nudged aside?” Larsa sounds somewhat concerned.

“It seems that my efforts to lobby peace and the revelation of my network of little birds that was a necessity for the working of such lofty machinations surged me into a better position—but hardly made me popular,” Al-Cid explains, with a grand gesture of his hands. “I know _many multitudes_ of secrets about my competitors thanks to their tendency to indiscretion and my little birds and while I won’t overstate my importance—it is a very big game in Rozzaria, with a caucus of moving pieces—I suspect I have become inconvenient for them.”

“They feared your ambition,” Larsa summarizes, and then he laughs, as if he must realize how silly a fear it is.

“Yes,” Al-Cid agrees, emphatically. “The fools. I would give up far too many freedoms and privileges of position to which I have become accustomed if I were to ascend beyond the rank I currently enjoy. There is not a man more constricted in all the country than the King.”

“I think you might wear respectability well,” Larsa says, ducking away from Al-Cid’s good-natured hair-mussing. They are likely to stand even heights next year, and Al-Cid seems to be taking advantage of the disparity while he still has the advantage of it.

“I would rather wear nothing, surrounded by beautiful men and women,” Al-Cid retorts.

At the other table, Balthier is looking at Basch again, drinking wine with his eyes sharp and bright on Basch with a gleam in them that is full of wicked promise that reminds Basch of the feeling of Balthier’s mouth on his cock. He shifts, and reaches for his own cup as the conversation behind him continues.

“There are good opportunities for you here, as well,” Larsa suggests.

“And here, there’s little danger that I will favor a rival with the information that I have gathered,” Al-Cid agrees. “But all this talk is uninteresting. How goes what you are building in Archades? I hear you have made all sorts of interesting discoveries by digging into Draklor’s depths.”

Basch drags his attention away from his own wine and the way Balthier’s licking his lips after desert, trying to pretend to be more present in the conversation. As he pulls his eyes away, he notices another gaze aimed in their direction. While Balthier and Vaan brag to one another, Penelo has her eyes cast wistfully across the distance to the Archadian envoy. _Is there such a gulf between us already?_

“Your birds have flown far to bring you such information,” Larsa remarks.

“They did not have to dig too deeply for it,” Al-Cid says, apologetically. “You have upset a great many old families with the projects you closed down. They feel their sponsorships have been ill-used and that there is still value in your war-weapons.”

“We shall see,” Larsa says. “I hope many of them can be convinced that having tools tempts their use—and I would rather build those that we could better use for peace instead.”

“On _that_ we can agree,” Al-Cid raises his glass, and Larsa bridges the gap with his own. Perhaps they _can_ build something lasting between them. “And on that _note_ , do you think I might find the respectable position of queen-consort open to my talents?”

Basch at last interjects. “I wouldn’t play my hand too strongly for that, Ambassador. The lady’s heart still belongs to her husband and her loyalty would demand it’s like in you, I suspect.” 

“Ah, no wand’ring weed for our desert flower. Of course,” Al-Cid does not seem offended. Instead, he smiles. “Perhaps wild and youthful ways might be tamed to her firm hand—but there is time yet for that. My _position_ as ambassador is like to be lifelong.”

Basch wonders. It’s hard to envision Al-Cid in ten year’s time, but harder still to picture other of his companions. _Does wildness eventually tame in_ every _man?_ He wonders that the idea is not a comfort to him. “Lord Larsa, I think the Lady Penelo might like a word with you.”

“Ah yes, she has been practically pulling out her own pigtails this last week,” Al-Cid glances back at the other table, and his smile says much. “She picked the dress with this evening in mind, to be sure. There’s to be _dancing_ of course, and she has a partner in mind already.”

Larsa blushes and on his fair skin it shows, even in the evening light. As if on cue, the meal begins to be whisked away by the brightly dressed and half-bare servants. With the sun down, the heat of day has dissipated enough to welcome dancers. Music strikes up, at first a mournful siren-call to beckon those that would dance in.

“And I’ll take my leave,” Al-Cid looks up toward the head table. “I want to catch the lady while she is fresh and her toes have not yet been trod on.”

Basch wishes him luck and then stands “Shall I invite our friends over, my lord?” 

“Please, my friend,” Larsa smiles gratefully up at Basch. “And I give you your leave, too. It would be a shame _not_ to dance now that for once you can leave your armor behind.”

Yet, the one Basch would dance with could hardly be seen with Gabranth. He will not sully the evening with melancholy. Instead, he goes to extend Larsa’s invitation to Penelo.

“Your dress is truly radiant,” he assures her, when she pauses to smooth it out. She twinkles a smile up at Basch, full of youthful brilliance. He remembers then, the youth of those around him. Larsa has just celebrated his fourteenth year. Penelo is barely in her seventeenth. Yet, these are the same that have changed the world.

“I know I’m being silly,” she says, tucking her hands behind her back. “But I want to be sure we stay friends.”

Basch nods. “With so much it’s easy to lose track—the world is changing. But kindness will help remind us.Go and dance, there are very few who have the courage to ask him back at home.”

“I want to dance with you, too, you know!” Penelo says so fiercely he can’t help but remember the way her blows landed in battle.

The mournful song has been joined by the beat of drums and the tempting tug of fiddles joining in, calling. Basch has not once danced since his youth in Landis. “You’ll find me a poor and slow partner, my lady.”

“Oh, shush,” she shakes her head at him. “At least dance with _Balthier_ , he’s been making eyes at you all night.”

The escort-walk back to Larsa’s table suddenly feels interminably long. He can feel himself blush. “You—noticed?”

“ _Please_ ,” Penelo laughs at him. “There’s nothing worse than Balthier when he’s not getting what he wants.”

She’s not wrong. Still, he reminds her, “It wouldn’t be appropriate for him to dance with a Judge Magister.”

She stops suddenly like a balking mule, just a few feet from their goal, and stamps one of her nicely-shod feet with a click of her heel to the courtyard flagstones and puts her hands on her hips like a scolding marm. Her glare is fierce enough to have swayed Vaan, but he’s not used to it turned on _him_ . “Do you think Balthier gives half-a-care about what’s appropriate? Who _does_ care about ’appropriate’! He’s a hero—you’re a hero, too, no matter what name you’re wearing. What’s all this—” she gestures around at the mixed company ”—for, if it doesn’t allow us to forge new connections? Go and enjoy yourself! If you’re so worried about it, I bet the music reaches lots of places where you’d have some privacy.”

Basch can do naught but blink at her fury, as one might when finding an unexpected lion, and then he submits to her wisdom. “As—as you say.”

She steps past him, satisfied, and asks for Larsa’s hand in the next dance.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**4.1 Balthier**

He finds Basch off to one side of the celebration, eyes on the dancers. There are enough varied partners that there’s nothing off the table—Al-Cid and the lady Ashelia are a striking pair even if she looks all consternation and focus against his attempts at charm. The loose counterpoint of his elegance and her precision makes them well-suited as dance partners.

On the opposite, Larsa and Penelo move with less certainty but more smiles as she coaches him through the complicated parts of the dance. Basch doesn’t move at all as Balthier approaches. “Someone should see to the Young Emperor’s dance lessons.”

“Not I,” Basch laughs. “It is not so vital a skill in Landis as it is in Archades. When we wanted to fence, we simply did it with blades.”

Balthier has always found Basch smarter and with a brighter insight than most give him credit for. He hates to see that sullied by the promise of too long in Archades. He’ll survive; Basch is an adaptable creature but Archades will change him—is changing him already if he sees and understands the jockeying for position even in dancing. “Does that mean you won’t come off the wall with me?”

Basch turns a surprised look on him, the expression bare without the bedamned helmet that transforms him into a dead man. His hair is shorter, and the dress-uniform seems to press Basch into an entirely unfamiliar shape—handsome, tempting and unknown—but the scar renders him into the man Balthier has fought and slept beside. Just as much a chameleon in his own way as Balthier.

“You’re being disingenuous,” Basch decides at last. “I can’t say no to you, Penelo will be upset. Everyone has such a fixation on dancing.”

“Better that than fighting,” Balthier reminds. “And I wasn’t joking. Come and dance with me.”

“What will they make of it? A hero of Dalmasca dancing with the hated Judge Magister who served lord Vayne…”

“There are few enough who would know you or I by face from any number in the crowd, Basch.”

“Sh!” Basch corrects, immediately and automatically.

“Oh _please_ ,” Balthier feels the hot flash of irritation climb up his spine. “You can’t hold it secret _always,_ you know. You’ll go to tomb in your brother’s name and find it set in stone over your head.”

Basch wheels and Balthier sees he’s weighed on the man’s patience because he’s struck an unpleasant resonance with the truth. “If I dance with you, will you be quiet?”

Balthier laughs, pleased by getting his way and sparking some fire in Basch’s response. He has gotten into Basch’s awareness and he knows he’s not the only one with an electric current of interest under his skin, after Vossler interrupted them. He’d meant to leave Basch hot and bothered. _Well, it worked,_ Balthier extends his hand to Basch and leads him to the edge of the dance floor _Just on both of us._

He’s acutely aware as they draw together to dance, of the size and warmth of Basch. Balthier is not short—though Fran is quick to stand over him when she thinks he’s _too_ much, and Basch has to turn his chin down just a little when they kiss. It’s a sensation Balthier has always liked, though he’d never admit it. He leans in close—Basch is not a poor dancer, when he’s familiar with the steps—and wonders more softly. “You’ve been waiting all evening, captain?”

“Of course,” Basch answers. 

It’s not as if he’s had any choice but to sit and suffer, the same as Balthier. He’d been so restless in his seat that even Fran had scolded him to be still. She’s hardly innocent—disappearing to her own ends without staying to dance at all.

“Then why are we still dancing?” Balthier wonders. “Are you still on duty—surely, Larsa is safe here with our companions?”

“Lord Larsa has given me my leave,” Basch answers in a low, and warm tone. “But I thought you wanted to dance?” 

There are very few people that play back when it’s Balthier they’re playing with. After all, most don’t get a second chance at his bed. Basch has come to be comfortable there, somehow. “While you are adequate at the waltz, Captain, there are other dances I might prefer, if I can have you all to myself.”

Balthier is aware of their closeness, and the steady and solid warmth he gives off. It wears at his patience like a file on stone, rasping away at his awareness that Basch is so close and alive, but neither can yet touch each other as they would like to—just dance close, their bodies connected in the places the waltz steps demand and all of that is a heated promise as the pace of the music winds up faster and Basch relaxes into the steps of it, like he goes fluid and yielding to the flow of swordplay at battle.

Here he is not dancing for his life, at least—he is instead surrendering to Balthier’s demands and feeling joy in it, and Balthier feels it echo and answer in his own chest. By the end of the music he is breathless and panting, dizzy from desire more than drink, and if it weren't for the eyes that Basch seems so sure are on them, he’d kiss the man right here and bite his mouth until they both forget they aren’t animals. 

As it is, he leans in to speak in Basch’s ear. “Be at your quarters within the next tenspan of minutes.”

Basch swallows, dark-eyed and breathing hard, and nods. Balthier leaves him behind in the night but he’s sure that Basch will follow him presently. He breezes the halls without seeing anything he passes. There are two guards on Basch’s door, but they are Dalmascan and familiar to Balthier. They make no remark as he admits himself, feeling the faint usefulness of his close favor with the queen even if at times too, it feels a bit like a stockade waiting to close on his wrist for a return favor.

The bottle of Madhu has gone warm, and only the dregs remain, so Balthier seizes it up and drains it, then discards the bottle. A cursory search of the room reveals no sign of aught-else to drink but the refreshed ewer of water. Balthier hopes Basch will bring something, but far more he hopes the man will _hurry_.

He strips his shirt while he waits, and settles back on the bed to drift in the faint spin of intoxication. For a moment, he drifts, listening to the faint strains of music that reach his ear through the night air. He hears the door open, and when he looks up Basch’s hands are empty but his eyes are full of lust, so any ire fades quickly beneath the pride that he had driven Basch to rush here, heedless of anything else.

“Basch,” he calls, and the other comes, leaning over Balthier on the bed like any moogle-tale prince to wake a princess, before their mouths crash together and Balthier surrenders into the kiss, as it’s all he’s been wanting all night.

The space and clothes between them seem intolerable, so Balthier begins work on unbuttoning Basch’s top, pulling open each fancy dress-buttton without pulling his hot mouth off of Basch’s to look. Basch grips his bare shoulders and then his rough hands trail down, pinching Balthier’s nipples until his gasps part their mouths. Basch turns his head then and affixes his mouth to the lobe of Balthier’s ear, working the loop piercing there between his teeth and tongue in a thoughtful way that shoots sparks of pleasure down Balthier’s spine and leaves him groaning and nearly helpless to it. His cock is hard in his pants, thusfar untouched but begging for attention. For a time, Basch just touches him, while Balthier pulls at his shirt, winding it up into a bunch of stiff uniform fabric over his chest.

“Balthier,” Basch has to loose the wetted shell of his ear to whisper into it, and the rough sound of his voice sends a spike of lust down into Balthier’s chest. “I’ve been thinking about you all evening.”

It sets a blaze of satisfaction alight in Balthier’s chest— his pride is an easy beast to pat and stroke, but it’s the rest of him now that is wild for the contact. “Then show me, Captain. You _know_ I never ask you to hold back.”

It’s not strictly the truth, Balthier has been holding them both at bay all evening, but now Basch lays him back on the bed and stands straight to undress himself. At the promise of that, Balthier palms over the front of his own pants, the friction dragging at his awareness. Basch is all planes of muscle and fluid motion despite the damage the years have done him—he moves with deliberate and hard-fought grace. Balthier squeezes himself tighter, until he can feel the soft weave of his unders pressing into his own skin. He gasps, _wanting_ and all the more for the deliberate time Basch is taking with his talented hands off of Balthier’s body.

“Hurry,” Balthier urges—begs, by the soft and desperate tone of his voice—as Basch flicks the dress shirt and jacket onto the floor.

“Waited long enough have you, pirate?” Basch finally starts seeing to his pants, standing over Balthier and revealing how hard and attentive his cock is. Balthier has felt the ghostly sensation of it pressing his tongue flat all evening. “It’s your own fault.” 

“I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Azelas’ abysmal timing. Come _here_ ,” Balthier reaches for Basch, only to find his hands batted away. “And his rotten attitude.”

Basch gets one knee on the bed and his big, rough palm over the bulge at the front of Balthier’s pants, pressing as Balthier rocks his hips up into it, aware of the slowly spreading spot of wet over the head of his cock as it weeps it’s slow and longing emissions preparatory for real release. “Your timing was hardly any better. It shouldn’t have been difficult to guess I’d have visitors.”

Balthier rolls his hips up to the pressure and friction, nearly wild with abandon even from the simple press-and-rub of Basch’s flat palm on his still-clothed cock. The heat from their dancing has faded into a low, eager sweat at the small of his back. “You could have sent him away.”

Basch hushes him, pressing his mouth low to Balthier’s belly and biting fit to mark him, revealing his dark and heady mood—things will be at his pace this evening and that renders Balthier’s insides nearly liquid with desire. The pinch of his teeth and the pressure of his hand quiet Balthier long enough for Basch to sit up and pull off Balthier’s pants at last, and his cock springs up toward his belly from the restriction of his pants quickly enough to scatter a few drops of precome in a wide arc.

Basch lifts his hand to his mouth as he drops Balthier’s pants behind and beside the bed, his tongue taking the smear of emission off his thumb, and then chasing the taste further with his lips. Balthier groans at the sight of it. “Hurry _please._ ”

Basch looks both surprised and pleased by his urgency; as a coerl might bat it’s pray around just a little more than necessary for the sheer pleasure of watching it struggle. He feels _decidedly_ at the Captain’s mercy, laid bare and as much at his whim as Balthier even allows himself as a matter of trust.

Basch drinks him in with a gaze and Balthier stretches and arches his body, letting his hands fall over his head against the coverlet as he twists in his implied surrender—he knows _this_ appeals to Basch in a match (a damnably lucky one) for Balthier’s own mercurial wants.

“It’s rare you surrender like this,” Basch says, and curls his hand around Balthier’s cock in a tight grip that squeezes him into a corner of his own pleasure.

Balthier claws at the blankets to twist them into his own tight grasp and moans. “Make it _worth_ it, would you?”

Basch strokes him roughly from root to tip and just that, just _that_ is enough to put a warning how eager his body is to give his release to Basch already. “I always do.”

And that, Balthier has ever told himself, is why he returns so often. Basch does not slow his pace as Balthier rocks his hips into it, and in moments where Balthier has his eyes closed to just _feel_ , Basch retrieves something slick from the nightstand. Balthier watches with a hungry gaze as Basch uses his other hand to slick himself in strokes that match time with the ones on Balthier’s cock. The slick, shiny slide of his length through his own fist is promising, and Balthier _wants_ him. The reaction must be visible, Basch looks him in the eyes and orders him boldly. “Up, on your hands and knees, Balthier.”

With little regard to dignity, Balthier eases over onto his front and arches onto his knees, pushing his backside up until Basch gets his hands on his hips and leans over his back, running his cock in a slow, slick thrust between the cheeks of Balthier’s ass and leaving a smear of slick against where Balthier wants him to be.

Yet, he doesn’t move his hands to stretch Balthier with his fingers, rather gets his grip back around Balthier’s cock and renews the quick pace of jacking a reaction from his body. Balthier rolls his hips into it, the tantalizing slide of Basch’s cock against, _so close_ , made counterpoint to the rush of his grip. Balthier wants to protest but he can’t find the air or focus as Basch pumps his eager cock and leaves hungry marks on Balthier’s back, heedless of the scarring there. It seems like he connects a live wire along the length of Balthier’s spine when he at last closes his mouth on the back of Balthier’s neck and sucks a bruise up that will last for days under his collar.

With a helpless buck of his hips, Balthier begins to spill himself through Basch’s grip, and on the instant, Basch changes the angle of his own hips and _pushes_ , sinking the head of his cock into Balthier while his body is pulsing and relaxing with release, and Basch _leans_ , opening Balthier relentlessly with his length. He hears the sharp cries emerging in his own voice—desperate pleasure and the stretch-and-burn edge of pain as Basch sinks himself in, to the hilt.

Balthier’s mind goes blank and still as he clutches the blankets and gasps. Basch feels like a steel rod inside him, heavy and filling so that Balthier can’t begin to sort the entirety of the sensations in his mind. “Gods,” he gasps, and, “Basch, Basch, _please_.”

Basch still has a grip on his cock, and Balthier can feel the heave of Basch’s belly as he takes a deep breath, and then the rough pad of his seed-soaked finger finds the slit in the head of Balthier’s softening cock and _strokes_ , and Balthier is too sensitive. The catch of callous feels like sparks and sandpaper. “Basch!”

“Get hard again for me,” Basch can command it, casual as that, leaning along Balthier’s back to cover his body with both their knees sunk deep into the mattress, as if it’s reasonable to request such, and so help Balthier if his cock doesn’t give a valiant twitch in Basch’s grip. Basch gives an answering _push_ with his hips, and Balthier’s still swimming thoughts submerge. His cock feels desperately sensate in Basch’s grip, but the long, heavy thrusts in counterpoint to the slick-and-toying grip demands a response. Balthier feels dizzied with it, rolling his hips between the sensations.

“Where’s that youthful vitality?” Basch asks, still so collected, even fucking Balthier into the guest suite mattress in the royal palace, like he can measure his own pace out forever, hold on with languid and deep pushes of his hips until Balthier surrenders to his demands.

 _As if I have any choice in the matter,_ Balthier thinks as his cock starts to harden again at last, and Basch speeds his pace, pressing a new angle from Balthier’s hips to drag his cock against his prostate, one hand big and steadying on Balthier's hip. It’s all a tumble and scatter of sensation—he can feel how the muscles low in his belly and high in his thighs tighten, and he can hear the high-pitched begging sounds he’s making, occasionally organizing into a request; harder, faster, _just_ there—that Basch ignores in favor of dismantling Balthier sensation by sensation. His cock is hard again and weeping slow, thick pulses every time Basch seats his cock fully against Balthier’s prostate and rakes it backwards.

He’s lost in it when Basch’s thrusts finally pick up speed and urgency, pulling Balthier irresistibly toward the same edge of release he’s chasing for himself, now. His body goes tight and his cries fade as he focuses on that too-tender sensation that threatens to last just a little too long, but then it breaks suddenly and washes over Balthier, as Basch yanks his hips back for two more thrusts, three, then he cums as deep inside Balthier as he can, hands both on his hips to hold him there. 

Release is white-hot this time, and for a moment it feels like something unwinding at his core as his body pulses through the physical half of it. After, his body goes soft, and he sags slowly in Basch’s still-tight grip. His mind is fuzzy and soft-edged when Basch finally seems to come out of the possessive grips of needing to be as far inside Balthier as he can reach. He sits back, and the sensation of withdrawal makes them both hiss at the sting.

Basch soothes him down onto the mattress and Balthier doesn’t make any effort to gather tension back into his slack limbs, as Basch shifts him onto his back and then settles in beside him, his hand lifted idly to his mouth to clean the release Balthier had poured out into his grip in what damn well felt like rivers.

Balthier leans in and kisses the taste from Basch’s mouth, salt and the sweet of the wine Basch had been drinking at dinner, and bitter at the end. He draws back with a faint grimace. “I don’t know how you can stand to swallow it. Wipe it on the sheets, I would hardly be insulted.”

Basch laughs, low and rough-voiced. “Yours is not the most bitter I’ve swallowed.”

For a moment, Balthier feels shock— _surely_ Basch can’t mean…? But he seems to think nothing of it, so Balthier sets aside sordid ideas about Nalbina. “It can hardly be my sweet personality. Honestly, I have never minded a woman’s emissions, but I draw a line…”

“Is that why you taught yourself to swallow so deep?” Basch pulls Balthier against the curve of his body, smoothing the sweat-damp hair back from Balthier’s forehead and pressing another kiss to the side of his mouth. 

“The reaction is always excellent as well,” Balthier reminds. He feels worn down into quietness, as always satisfied by how well Basch knows to push his limits. “That was some trick you just pulled on _me_ , by the way. I count myself unusually young and virile as you say, but twice in immediate succession...”

“I devised it just for you,” Basch mutters, and if he looks just faintly embarrassed by that, he has no reason to be. Balthier leans into him, tracing idle patterns on the bare skin of his chest and feeling his voice as Basch continues. “What was it you said? ‘Until I’m satisfied and we’re both unfit for the next day’s duty’?” 

Balthier heaves a satisfied sigh. “You remember all that?”

“You worked hard to sear it into my thoughts,” Basch traces a hand idly over Balthier’s belly, dragging lines through the cooling mess on his skin. “And, I’m not sure I’m done with you, yet.”

Balthier feels another spike of interest combat the lassitude that usually overtakes him—for a few minutes—after such exertions. “Oh?”

Basch shifts, and Balthier moves with him, pushing him onto his back and lifting himself over Basch’s hips to sit there at command of him, looking down at all his scarred strength and capability subdued—and to the best of Balthier’s knowledge, only to his hand. It’s a heady feeling, somehow. “Well, we know I can twice release in rapid following, and turnabout is fair play, isn’t it Captain?”

Basch laughs. “Let’s find out.”

* * *

4.2

His body feels sore to the depths of his bones, well-used and pleasurably wrung dry when Balthier picks his clothes up off the floor just before dawn. It’s longer than he usually stays, but they’d only just finished with each other a thirty minute-span ago, when Basch had pulled a dry orgasm from Balthier’s straining body, as much raw, straining ache as pleasure. 

Basch has at last gone into the softness of sleep, and Balthier watches the peace on his scarred features as he drains a second glass of water dry. He breathes deeply when he sleeps and tonight, after all the effort and abuse his muscles have taken, his body is slack and utterly relaxed. _He has always slept like an honorable man._ Balthier envies that of him, even as he makes sure to tuck the blankets more securely around the man, before stealing out into the night like the thief he is at heart. 

Just before the sun is up, the city of Rabanastre is at her coolest—most of the heat stored over the course of the scorching day has leached out of the sand, leaving the night air almost shockingly cool. Balthier steps on the last scattered petals of yesterday’s flowers, the streets clear from yesterday’s celebrations, and he’s sure that more than a few people are sleeping off their hangovers and will be well into the day. _It’s been a long time since Dalmasca could celebrate like this._

He remembers the tension in the air when Vayne had paraded his forces through the streets—how the citizens had a forced air of merriment with a sharper understone of resentment. _Truly, for a time, they learned to be Archadians._

He finds the Strahl in the royal wing of the Aerodome, a protected port that Ashe has given him permanent leave to dock within. He only intends to do so for official functions. Getting comfortable—developing habits—these are the traps that he has no desire to fall into. He finds Fran waiting for him in the copilot’s seat, and when he enters, she wrinkles her nose.

“You smell like him,” she observes. “You did not stop to clean up before you left.”

“There was hardly any helping it,” Balthier apologizes. He never minds wearing such evidence on his skin for a short time, but the gritty and grimy feeling beneath his clothing today will plague him for the duration of their flight. “But Rabanastre does not provide the soaking tubs it will take to get this off, and…”

“You stayed longer than you intended to begin with,” Fran finishes his sentence for him while Balthier sits tenderly in the pilot’s seat. “Are you set for our next destination?”

“We will make it to Bhujerba in time for a bath,” Balthier says. “And needn’t worry about recognition in the bathhouses there.” 

“Unless B’gamnan and his sisters have begun to take to bathing in the hume style.”

“That _would_ be our luck,” Balthier lifts the Strahl gently from her perch, in no rush today and satisfied instead with the precision and responsiveness of the Strahl to his hands. “But, we’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

“The Bangaa would smell more sharply the scents you bear than even I do,” Fran eases her sharp-clawed hands onto the stabilizers. 

“So you’re saying I might ward them off with my stink?” Balthier laughs. “Then I apologize for my offense.”

Fran accepts this wordlesly but with an incline of her head and a faint, knowing smile. The sky spreads out before them, and welcomes the Strahl in.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**5.1 Basch**

Time does not creep in Archades but flies on faster wings than even the Strahl. Months pass quickly under the efforts to restore the council with new and cautious restrictions. These too become elected positions, and the power between them and the Emperor is more cautiously balanced. It is a flurry of trying candidates, soliciting votes. At Basch’s urging (and with Zargabaath’s begrudging approval) two are elected from old Archades, with the intent on decreasing the separation between the two halves of the city. Larsa’s coronation is at last given the vote of the newly official council, and Basch secretly holds to himself that the job is well done when the decision has a clear majority, but is not unanimous. 

They consent to crown Larsa on his fifteenth birthday, and it startles Basch to know how suddenly near that is.

“That is two months hence,” Basch laments. “Will there be time enough to plan?”

“As needs-must be,” Larsa says. “Hard to believe near a year has past.”

The summer in Archades had brought the heat to the still air of Tsenoble, and Basch managed to convince the Magister’s Council to enact special mandates for the dress code in summertime. It’s proved popular enough that it’s stayed—and he’s been greatly relieved to spend less of his average day getting into and out of full plate armor. “A relief, and hard-won.”

“Greatly thanks to your effort,” Larsa agres. “We are at last making changes that feel substantial.” 

“It's driven by your vision and the people’s adherence to it,” Basch reminds. “It feels over-long in coming, perhaps, but two years is quick in passing when the face of history has shaped in hundreds the world we stand in.”

“Yes,” Larsa glances at Basch with a smile. “But only the Viera will see the changes we are making come to fruit if things continued at the pace they began at.”

The thought is sobering. Basch will soon be forty years of age—and in truth, he has not thought to see it, not even when first he and Noah were driven apart by the fall of Landis, had expected to fall in battle on any of a dozen days since then. In his darkest, he’d felt sure that hunger and thirst would kill him in madness in Nalbina. It was a timeless span in his thoughts, but two years had passed. _And perhaps I can justify it that I have not seen my fortieth year. I will see Noah’s._

And now that same span again, nearly twice over. “At least we can rely on our good relations with Dalmasca and continue forging anew with Rozarria to speed things along.”

Larsa smiles. He is growing taller still, and widening at the shoulders. Basch wonders if he would see any such changes in Vaan and Penelo—they had nearly been done growing by the time he met them, but _maturity..._ that was a tricky thing to know the end of.

“What word from Al-Cid by the way?” Basch asks. Correspondence from the man isn’t rare—but most of it is rambling and meaningless to disguise what letters or passages have any true value.

“He says that some airships have found troubles outside the known bounds of the Jagd,” Larsa says. “At first only scattered reports. I would almost chalk it up to carelessness, but now with these latest reports, I wonder.”

Basch does too. “Perhaps we should send an expeditionary force to investigate?”

“Any mobilization of our fleets may come across as suspect.” Larsa sighs. “Especially in light of my recent election. But I fear that Jagd is growing in places. I have had requests for Nethecite-wrought skystones, but our reserves run low without Draklor producing either them or the manufacted nethecite that forms their basis.”

Draklor has remained still and empty all this time. Basch hates to see as necessary any cause to stoke the dangerous fires within it again. He considers the issue. Dalmasca has yet to rebuild her fleet from the ashes—beyond the Queen’s personal transport ship and two knight carriers heavily funded in materials from both Rozaria and Archades as part of restoration efforts. The pace has been nearly as glacial in the dismantling of the destroyed Bahamut, parts being salvaged as often as possible to put into new ships.

“Perhaps we might commission an investigation force from all three countries,” Basch suggests.

“But who will head it? It will take delicacy,” Larsa shakes his head. “Gone are the days when I had the leisure to lead such a task myself, but the others I might send have not made gone with many of their prejudices. Things are—as ever—delicate.”

The solution strikes Basch quicker than he would like, given the nature of it. “What if we commissioned an outside party to lead the survey?”

Larsa looks uncertain for only a short moment before he follows. “There _is_ perhaps one such party we can trust to handle Archadian ambitions as well as a familiarity with Jagd.”

“His ship is equipped to navigate it safely, as well,” Basch remembers the long hours of wait while the moogle—Momo—installed the new crysts of skystone.

“But, will he agree?”

That’s the trick of it. Basch has not seen Balthier or Fran since Her Majesty Queen Ashelia’s coronation. But perhaps he could be reached if word was sent to Balfonheim, and they are not in a particular hurry. “I suspect if we ask in the right way and make obeisance to his way of things with a fair price for his time.”

Basch knows the money or reward is the least of it, but to Balthier there is a proper order and a certain theatricality required for his involvement. It shields him from too-familiar entanglements or obligations on the grounds of ‘friendship’-the sorts of ties he professes to eschew.

“Then I give you my leave to enact it in whatever way you might find most effective. I’m given to understand that your staff consider him your agent to begin with,” Larsa’s smile is apologetic, but with a faintly wicked edge.

 _Dyce._ Basch sighs. “He has been given leave to turn up at his whim—in my home.”

“I reassured your servant that he was doing you—and I, too— a service to continue to look the other way when Balthier turned up. Little as Balthier would like it, his work has been exceedingly beneficial to us.”

“I have not seen him in some time, however.” Basch wonders _exactly_ what Dyce and Larsa have in their heads to believe about Basch’s companionship with Balthier. _How many details?_ “I will send word.”

“Then I leave the matter in your hands,” Larsa says. “Tell him I would be happy to pay any price.”

Basch is not sure there is one that will entice him, but he makes his mind up, takes his leave and begins to compose the letter.

* * *

5.2

Basch is entertaining a young noble with a grievance about a land dispute in the Tchita uplands when a shriek shatters the peace of his household, from the upstairs. Basch jumps only a little, before he suspects the nature of the disturbance.

The young noble, however, looks shocked.

“Just a moment if you please,” Basch says calmly. If it is really a threat, it’s better to face it with a level head, anyway. He takes up his sword and leaves the man gaping in his reception room to ascend the stairs.

“I’m _sorry_ , ser,” Millicent wails, wringing her hands in her apron. There is a pile of bed-linens on the floor at her feet. “It’s just I never _expect_ him there, ser, and he’s so sneaky-quiet! Please don’t let Dyce put me back on overnights, I only just got back t’bein proper awake in the daytime!”

Basch looks into his quarters and finds Balthier seated comfortably, with his feet up on the hearth and a book laid open in his lap. He smiles rakishly at Basch and Millicent. 

“No worries, Milly,” Basch assures her. “I’ll be sure you don’t find your schedule altered again for his rogueries.”

She nods, gratefully gathering up the dropped linens. Basch supposes from the neatness of his bed, that she’d stripped and re-made the whole thing with Balthier sitting just where he was, motionless and lurking. He picks up the last scattered pillowcase and hands it to her. “Would you bring up some tea for our guest?”

She shoots a glare at Balthier in open defiance of his smug and self-satisfied expression, but nods and makes away, clutching the linens angrily.

“You could stop terrorizing the poor girl,” Basch scolds.

“I was just waiting for you to conclude your business,” Balthier says. “And reading. I don't know how you stand these…”

He displays another of the Archadian romance novels from the stack on the fireside table. 

“I do still have business. We’ll discuss the literature when I’m free. Try _not_ to upset my staff again?”

Balthier waves him off with an idle hand. “She knows I’m here now. If she jumps again and shrieks, it won’t be my fault.”

Downstairs, Basch apologizes to the unsettled noble. “Sorry, sky pirates in my quarters. The matter has been handled.”

“Is your maidservant alright?” 

The look of shock on the man’s face is worth the wry vagueness of Basch’s explanation. _I wonder that myself, sometimes._ “Startled, but intact. Anyway, have you brought the land surveys and deeds for review?” 

It’s perhaps his least favourite duty, sussing out what rock, tree, or river determines what border, and denoted who’s property.

“I did, Judge Magister. And _I_ want to extend my thanks again for your assistance in this matter. It has plagued my family for some years…” As if pirates in bedrooms were an everyday occurrence, the noble shakes off the concern and produces a large sheaf of papers contained in several bundles.

“I will have to make a review and consult with some of my Judge-Adjutants. May I have some time to get to terms with the situation?” Basch leans on Archadian formality here. The man can hardly say no, if he wants a favourable outcome.

“Of course, Judge Magister. Take what time you need.” With the matter left in Basch’s hands, the noble takes his leave. Basch carries the onerous stack of papers upstairs to dump them unceremoniously on his desk, finding Balthier just where he left him but with a cup of tea in hand.

“Has it driven you mad, yet?” Balthier asks, smiling mischievously at Basch’s task.

“No, but…” Basch rolls his shoulders to stretch them and takes a moment to glance over at Balthier, trusting that he’d have given evidence earlier than now if anything was much changed for him. He sits comfortably in the chair attendant to the fireplace, letting the banked coals warm his feet. “I wonder how some of these conflicts make it to the level that they require my attention.”

“Is it the Beouvules?” Balthier asks, and Basch sees him lay a pen he’d been holding down to one side on the table, before closing the book and adding it back to the top of the stack.

“As it happens, yes,” Basch says. “If you have some insight as to the situation, I would be appreciative if you would share it.” 

“They’ve been bringing this case before anyone who will listen for years,” Balthier drinks his tea and Basch takes the unoccupied chair, beginning to serve himself some as well. “It goes back and forth, and every time the matter seems to finally be settled, one side or the other comes up with some other tactic.”

“‘Tis not that important, surely. The land doesn’t have any mining prospects, nor is it even any good for grazing. It’s all wild territory, there.” Basch drops a cube of sugar more forcefully into his drink than is necessary, and watches it sink, melting. “But I suppose it must come down to the principal of the matter.”

“Just as you say. The two families are at war less over the dimensions of the parcel and more over who has the bigger estate—and more say at landmeet councils,” Balthier explains. “Layers upon layers, Captain,and all of it tiresome. Is it any wonder I ran?”

He turns a look that Basch can’t read the significance of in Basch’s direction, but it’s gone before he can address it. “No, I truly understand. Then, I won’t feel bad taking my time with my decision on their land dispute.”

“You’re saving the next man to handle it from facing it any sooner than he must.”

“That’s something, at least.” Basch has a long sip of tea.

“I got your letter, vague as it was. And only a week after it first arrived. What need do you have of me?”

“Business, I’m afraid,” Basch apologizes. “Are you hungry? Shall we eat first before I tire your ears?”

“We can eat after. If your proposition displeases me this way, I won't feel too heavy to leave.”

Basch isn’t sure it’s entirely a joke, but he lets it lie. “What hear you about the spread of Jagd?”

Balthier is not surprised by his words. “There is much talk amongst the pirates of Balfonheim, both sea and air. I’ve heard too from the regular airship captains who have any cause to stray from the well-safe passageways.”

“It has come to our ears as well.”

“‘Tis good that the empire needn’t feel the pinch at all then,” Balthier says, frigidly.

“What might cause this?”

“Nethicite,” Balthier spits the word. “Too much of it in the sand or soil, and it’s not just ships that can’t make the sky. Magicks can’t be cast on such rich soil and even monsters tend to steer clear of such places.”

“Do you think it’s somehow spreading?”

“I haven’t the first clue.” Balthier sets his tea cup aside. “Don’t you have specialists for these matters? Ask them. They’re likely bored to tears, left unemployed by Draklor’s closure.”

“We do, but I think none have the same experience as you do—both as the captain of an airship out in the world and as one who walked the whole path of the stuff.”

“Such a wicked way it was. And glad am I to wash my _hands_ of it.”

“We were considering a survey,” Basch sense the conversation is wresting itself from his grip and he struggles to get it back into his command. “But sending our ships out is a delicate matter at present.”

Balthier’s gaze grows sharp and his expression turns toward a scowl. “So you thought to send a ship that _wasn’t_ yours.”

“I thought we might arrange a joint effort,” Basch temporizes. “If Jagd truly is growing, we will need to take a measure of it and the rate at which it gains ground, ‘lest we find a shipping lane suddenly impinged upon or tragedy has struck someone who can ill-afford it.”

“And you thought of _me._ ”

Basch considers this—he had expected pushback or resistance. Demands, certainly, but this anger mostly surprises him. He considers his words carefully before continuing. “We trust you, and the Strahl is the only airship I know of that has skystone equipped that will take her safely over the Jagd and does not belong to Archades.”

“What matters the ship when I would go as the Emperor’s catspaw?” Balthier snaps.

“We’ll contract with you, nothing more if you don’t like,” Basch tries to find where he has mis-stepped in asking for this favor. Balthier is looking at him with hard and flat eyes, and Basch believes he might at any second flee as he had earlier threatened. More worrisome still, he’s not sure he’d ever see the man again.

“How respectable.”

“Balthier,” Basch soothes. He stands, and retreats a step, two, to a low sidebar. There is no madhu in it, but his brother kept a good stock of fine Landissian whiskey. He pours both of them a measure in the spotless crystal glasses laid there for him every morning before he continues. “What is the stem of this anger? You know I will not force you. I just offer first to you the job you are best suited for.” 

He extends one glass to Balthier, who takes it sullenly without meeting Basch’s gaze. “And that’s all you want from me?” 

It’s meant, Basch knows, to sound flippant and dispel the tension, but there is a certain _tone_ in it that pulls at Basch’s attention, so that when the change of Balthier’s features writes itself into displeasure with an inward bent, Basch sees it. Balthier steals a gaze toward him to see if he’s looking, then crashes the glass against his mouth and _drinks_ , drains the whole measure dry when he realizes that Basch has seen.

The entire reaction is highly unusual. Basch is going to need time to sort it out in his mind—he’s sure that Balthier will be on guard against anything further forthcoming in word or attitude. So, he sips his own glass slow enough to taste the whiskey and lets it sit heavy and peat-smoke on his tongue. He decides on the safest route. “I do not want to make _too_ many demands of your time, but I trust—and by your actions thought you knew—you’re always welcome here. It _does_ pain me that it’s been nearly a year.”

Balthier takes a moment to reassemble the parts of his guard that he’d like to keep up. Basch makes the circuitous trip to the decanter on the sidebar, fills Balthier’s glass a little more reservedly this time in case he again decides to gulp it dry. Then he brushes the stack of books on the attendant table to one side and sets the decanter down. 

“But for _this_ , Basch? An errand?” Balthier asks at last. 

“I try not to pull so often at your attention that it might feel like a chain, my friend,” Basch says softly. _I don’t want you to snap the rope in my hands just to prove you’re truly a free creature._

“You’re allowed, Captain, to want things for yourself.” 

Basch has to parse that front to back. He hasn’t thought about it. Want something? He does, but he knows Balthier well enough to know that having and holding are separated by miles. 

“I do want things.” Basch admits. “But not so much that I will stifle what I have.”

“I’ll do it, damn you.” Balthier says, but Basch reads it as much as a change of topic as a concession. It’s a strange victory, but a satisfying one nonetheless.

* * *

5.3

The plans come rapidly into motion to Basch’s surprise. Even Rozzaria has found the effects of the strange growth of Jagds encroaching and Ashelia cannot send a ship but she trusts Vossler in her place. Basch almost regrets his need to stay with the Emperor. Partially, it is watching his friends gear up for adventure, and partially his desire to be sure that peace remains between Vossler and Balthier—but he must trust that to Fran.

He catches her when it comes time to load the Strahl with her abundance of supplies.

“I’m sorry for the burden this will be,” he offers, though her secretive expression holds the same Viera serenity he’s come to know is no indicator of how complicated they are, emotionally.

“It is a rift they will have to patch eventually, if both are to remain your friends,” she answers without any particular tone in her voice, just the weightless patience that draws Balthier to her side and keeps him loyal in ways he’d deny he is capable of.

“May I ask you something?” Basch settles a box in the hold, and then sits atop it, that they might be close to talk. 

“We have made war beside each other,” Fran reminds. “You may ask anything. I may not answer, if it strikes me not to do so.”

“It’s about Balthier,” Basch starts. “I would ask him, but…”

“He does not always give an answer that says all it needs to,” Fran agrees. “I was wondering when you might ask my advice—though he vexes even I, at times.”

“It’s strangely comforting to know that.”

“For you, perhaps,” she says. He senses the joke in it more than it shows in her voice or tone.

“He seems upset I didn’t call him back before I had a task to lay at his feet.”

Fran hesitates at that, and then nods. “A matter of ego. He desires to be… coveted.”

“Is there anyone that meets him that doesn’t desire him?” Basch wonders. _Coveted?_

Fran gives him a long look and there’s an ageless quality to it that draws a sheepish smile out of Basch. “He wants to know that _you_ covet him.”

Basch is struck by this, and he lets drop the levity of his earlier statement. _Surely he knows I do already._ “Of course, I…”

To Basch, the answer to that question could not be any more obvious—on many nights spent alone he wishes for Balthier’s company in particular, and not just when there’s an absence in his bed. He misses Balthier when he’s read an interesting passage the man might like, or when he’s tired and wishes he could give himself permission to rest, for a time.

“I know,” Fran says.

“But if I hold too hard or constrain him at all, I’ve always feared I’d lose him. He doesn’t like to be pulled on or summoned. I thought for something so frivolous, I shouldn’t.” Basch’s words feel like an excuse to hear aloud.

“As you say,” Fran says. She gets to stand at his side every day, and in some ways Basch envies that, though he doubts he could ever feel the depths of love she does that gives her the detachment to have faith unwavering that he will always be back. “But, perhaps... Not too often—softly, delicately—Balthier must be given the option to resist a recall to your side.”

Basch considers this with a pang. “So that he can say no, and remind himself of his freedom?”

Fran shakes her head, the long tail of her hair drifting behind her. “So that the _choice_ to say yes is before him, and his to make.”

Basch closes his teeth on that with a click, taken aback. _How circular does this go?_ But —it is invaluable knowledge, too, and so he takes it. It will be an easy enough matter to reach out to Balthier when he thinks of him—though not _every_ time he thinks of him. He tries for levity, to claw back out of the depths. “He must receive many such letters and missives.”

Fran tilts her head to temporize her agreement. “He has never agreed to go back to any of them.”

That surprises Basch, and worries him. He had thought himself one of a number of lovers—some only for an eve’s time, but surely some with Balthier’s company won as often as Basch enjoys it. Fran clearly reads the surprise on his face and nods.

“I didn’t know,” Basch admits.

“He wouldn’t have told you. That you let him wander and would not keep him too close—that is why.”

Basch feels the curious impact of _that_ somewhere aching in his chest. He nods. “Thank you, Fran.”

“You are good to him,” she says, bestowing a rare sign of approval. “And good _for_ him. He is still young enough to need healing from the loss of his father. Both times.”

It’s easy to forget Balthier is not yet thirty—he carries himself with both youth and agelessness, somehow. “He seems at least to have healed the wounds from the Bahamut.”

Fran nods, slowly. “Much magick it took for both of us. He was worried the scars would make him less desirable. He returned to me from your hands and care greatly reassured. I am grateful.”

Basch finally has to ask her, now that they are sitting together and speaking in earnest. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“It is not the way of the Viera to have only one partner. He would not begrudge me, now or after his passing. We are very long-lived, but he lives his fleeting span like he intends to have all I might,” she says, and smiles. It is a sharp-toothed thing, but softer than it might be. “It is much hurt for him to live in so short a time. With you, I do not worry.”

Basch has learned much in these few minutes. “And you need never. I will always see him back to you whole and safe.”

She draws straight and the wisdom of ages is in her eyes— _I can’t promise that,_ he knows _, It is beyond my ken or even hers to know tomorrow._ . But what she _says_ is, “I know. To you I give the same word. He is not yours or mine, but to each his heart is at times entrusted. So guarded a beast and yet comes to lay down at one’s side. It is the closest I have felt to the green word of the wood, since I left her.”

She turns to go, and as is her way, she doesn’t say goodbye.

* * *

5.4

The reports come one a day with the dimensions of Jagd defined out and carefully mapped, interspersed with the tight scrawl of Balthier’s handwriting.

- _Your friend is nearly insufferable. He_ does _have a sense of curiosity, as it happens, at the most inconvenient times. He stirred up a nest of coerls for what I can only describe as ‘fun’-_

And Basch wishes more strongly than ever that he could have gone along. But he must remain at Larsa’s side, usually armored and in attendance for any number of planning sessions, cautious and alert to the dangers that so many audiences and meetings are like to present. Many would see it as the last chance to keep a Solidor off the throne.

 _So far,_ he thinks while tapping firmly on a table underside, _no one has tried._

In addition to worrying about this, he pecks slowly away at a return missive—something to send back to Balthier in a less official capacity. Something like a request for some time-if they’ll ever have it, who knows-just for them. The words feel difficult and wrong and he crumples up a decent amount of paper to throw into the blazing fires at night. 

“Begging your pardon, ser,” Millicent intrudes gently on his thoughts, carrying in a fresh pot of tea to set at his elbow. “But normally by now you’ve gone to bed. Can I bring you anything to make you comfortable or let the night staff know of your needs?”

She picks one of his crumpled pages that hadn’t quite made it into the fire and gives it a gentle toss to complete the arc. She must have noticed the bits of paper in the ash in mornings, or she’s been by and seen him at his struggles. Basch straightens his back. “No need, Millie, thank you. I think I’m about ready to give up for the night.”

She hesitates and then she nods as if deciding something. “Whatever it is, ser, it will look better in the morning. I know you’ve been at it for hours.”

He wonders when staff has come to be concerned enough with his well being to take notice of such things. “Thank you, Millicent. Have a good evening.”

She ducks her head and makes to go. Basch adds a mental note to praise her to Dyce. He knows the man doesn’t approve of how easily she startles—nor how loud she gets about it. He rubs his eyes, takes his cup of tea, and gets into bed to make ready to sleep. 

Wakefulness Clings to him through a cup and a half—his thoughts racing on a dozen paths. The ascension ceremony, Balthier’s latest invectives for Vossler, and finally he turns the gas-lamp at his bedside back on, eyes falling on the novel atop the stack on the hearthside table. 

When he retrieves it, he intends to read until he falls asleep, but he finds the margins of the pages altered from his last memory—lettered in artful musings in Balthier’s hand and it’s as if he’s there, whispering softly in Basch’s ear about the silliness of the whole overly-complex thing, until he finds sleep.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

6.1 Balthier

From the air, the process is simple enough. Skirt the known edges of Jagd territory until the output needle for the glossair rings gives a surge. 

“Between these two marks,” Balthier reminds Vossler again, as Vossler sweats and fumes over the reams of paper—map surveys and records of flight deviations as well as a blank log for the coordinates and records of what they find. “That means we’re over Jagd.”

Vossler squints at the gauge. “What happens if it exceeds the mark?”

 _At least he has already gathered that a lower reading means we aren’t in Jagd,_ Balthier thinks uncharitably. “It means the glossair rings can’t compensate for the level of magickal drain and we’re like to find ourselves in a sharp dive with a short end.”

Vossler looks at him long enough to discern the truth of his words, and he looks even more upset than usual. “ _Airships._ ”

“I can hardly blame you for your dislike,” Balthier answers, as Fran keeps the Strahl steady. “Since your last experience aboard an airship left you nearly dead.”

Vossler’s grip on his pen goes tight enough for the magicked bamboo to flex, and Balthier sees the man’s temper hasn’t much changed. 

“I don’t understand why they sent _you_ ,” Balthier says, and reaches out to tap the area over which they’re currently flying, to indicate where Vossler should mark new Jagd. “But since you _insisted_ you should be more useful, try to do so?”

Vossler scrubs a mark onto the page nearly hard enough to rip through it. “And what do _you_ get out of it, sky pirate?”

“I get to feel good about myself,” Balthier answers tritely. No matter what he says, it will be cause for outrage in Vossler’s eyes. He is still upset about Balthier’s role in Ashe’s travels, years past though it now is. 

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Fran gives Balthier a warning look—they still have some time to spend in Vossler’s company, and much as Balthier is usually willing to irritate someone he disagrees with until they snap, he isn’t the only one who will have to deal with the fallout.

“I’m not sure there’s an answer I can give that you _would_ believe,” Balthier says at last, giving his head a shake. “Let it rest, Azelas—it’s enough that I agreed to do it—Her Majesty and His Imperial Highness are the ones that benefit.”

Just then, the needle gives a surge and Balthier moves the ship sharply away to safer territory. A glance out the canopy does not give any indication of what might be below aside from the jagged and rocky scrublands they have been criss-crossing all day.

“What was that?” Vossler asks, argument forgotten in favor of curiosity.

“Something big,” Balthier answers,considering. He glances at Fran.

“This place is nearly devoid of Mist,” she says. “Something thirsts beneath the soil.”

“Do you think we might find an answer to why the Jagd is slowly creeping outward if we go and try to dig it up?” Balthier asks.

“Perhaps,” she says. “Or perhaps it is just something very old, beyond our ken, hiding itself where it will be least known.”

“You don't want to check it out?”

“That, I did not say,” Fran answers. “We will have to land afield and go on foot. Too long in the presence of so strong a draw and our skystones will be drained dark.”

Balthier looks over his shoulder at their third companion. “What say you, Azelas? Up for a walk?”

“Sounds like a fight,” Vossler says. 

“It may well be. What about those wounds of yours?” Balthier asks. “Will they give you any trouble?” 

“So far as I know, Nethicite does not react to nethicite,” Vossler says.

“Then I suppose we’ll find out,” Balthier agrees. He guides the ship toward a promising clear patch of land. “This should at least be interesting.”

The air outside the ship is almost eerily still. Balthier doesn’t like it and he can tell by Fran’s erect posture and alert attunement to their surroundings that she doesn’t, either. “Something is wrong in this place.”

“Right,” Balthier agrees. “We’ll pack for a fight and a night’s stay, just in case.”

He checks his gun to be sure of its battle-readiness and passes potions from their store to Vossler. The man has procured another of the overlarge swords he so favors from somewhere and he slings it onto his back in clear anticipation.

“Not so much as a bird overhead,” Vossler observes, shouldering his pack, too.

“Perhaps that’s not unusual for this place, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” Balthier leads the way, steps quick on the uneven and unforgiving stone. “If you see any monsters that can be avoided, best to let them go about their day. We should save our resources in case something big comes our way.”

“Who died and put you in charge?” Vossler growls.

“Would you like to take a majority vote?” Balthier snaps back. _Gods_ , why would he be tested like this, saddled with Vossler’s presence like some kind of trial. _You do truly enjoy your ironies._

_You rescued him from depths and fates unknown._

Balthier did, yes, in a way. A little gratitude would be expected, but he knows better than to count on it. The three of them fall into the quiet of the place, scrambling over stone. Sound itself seems distant, as if the bare rock below was muffling it hungrily, consuming it for some purpose.

_To you a debt in honor staid is owed._

It’s like the most distant of thoughts, a faint buzzing in the back of his mind. Balthier is focused instead on Fran, watching her scout ahead. He sees the moment she senses something and there follows her gaze to the maw-like opening in the stone ahead and to their right.

“Now _that_ looks like trouble,” Balthier agrees with Fran’s wordless assessment as Fossler huffs up behind them.

 _Within lies power yet gath’ring_ .   
_For purpose still gain’d by the changing world._

It’s like a premonition of shadow. His thoughts are troubled, but so seem those of the others.

“Something is like to sleep within,” Fran says. “Something powerful, gathering Mist, depleting the land.”

“You think _this_ is the cause of it all?” Vossler asks. “Just some hole in the ground?”

“Shall we wake it and find out?” Balthier asks, more to Fran than in response to Vossler.

She strides forward, and he follows, his mind still faintly abuzz but now with the certainty he is on the right path. 

* * *

6.2

Every creature they pass in the cave lies dead already, motionless on the ground.

“Poisonous gas?” he asks Fran, as they come to the first cluster of dead bats.

“No something more insidious.” She crouches, pulling an arrow from her quiver to turn one limp-winged form over without letting it touch her skin. “The magick has been pulled from them—to the last drop.”

Vossler’s hand goes cautiously to his own chest, as if in concern. A roiling fog steams from the cave floor, but the place is devoid of Mist. Balthier feels again that sense of rightness to be here, but he does not let it override his caution. “Does it hurt?”

“No, but it feels strange,” Vossler says. “Weaker.”

“The nethicite has no Mist to drink,” Fran says. “You have grown used to feeling the power sustaining you.”

 _No harm will come to humes who here tread ways_ _  
_ _That lead to power bright below._

“We should be fine,” Balthier agrees aloud. “So long as we don’t stay overlong.”

“Let us be quick, then.” Fran steps past he still forms and the fog runs in eddies and rivulets around her delicate ankles. It’s quick progress—nothing slows their passage as the scores of monsters in their other adventures had—and by luck they turn ever the right way. Balthier can almost sense it like Fran does, and when he steps forward decisively as she pauses to take measure, she gives him a strange look.

He shrugs. “It hardly matters if it’s the wrong way. We pay no cost but the time to double back.”

“Time is cost enough,” Vossler gripes, but he follows too. At last, a massive chamber opens before them; a glow from within revealing their nearness to something unknown. A statue sits, pedestalled, of a creature with the mane and teeth of a lion and a long twisted body like a snake.

“How old is this, I wonder? And is it the source of the trouble?” Vossler looks to Fran. Balthier has eyes only for the thing.

It looks familiar—and then at last he places his finger on it. A guardian—an Esper chained here to protect—what? _To my eyes, it’s naught but bare stone._ “Are we ready for a fight?”

He scarce has finished the words when the stone statue gives a ripple, and from it bursts the beast made form—a snake like body with a cat’s fierce countenance. It screeches, slamming down it’s two forepaws. 

**Dost...challenge...** **_me?_ **

Vossler unsheathes his weapon, and Fran isquick to raise her bow. “No magicks will fruit here. Best to go with caution!”

It’s to be a long fight, then, and Balthier is glad for the packed restoratives as he lifts his gun and fires, circling away to see if the thing has a weak spot he might aim for. The serpentine tail lashes him in the face for his trouble, and he feels the cut of a barb on his cheek,the numbing sting of poison as he reloads. He calls a warning as his vision spins and loses a precious moment fishing in his pack for an antidote.

The thing is all writhing muscle and quick, snakelike strikes, or swipes of it’s clawed paws. Vossler seems to find the timing of its attacks, and Fran and he pull its attention between them to spare anyone too much damage. Vossler seems to tire faster than expected, sagging between his heavy strikes and his face a grim mask of determination to keep going. It is pure attrition, a wearing of their wills against its speed and poison. 

When at last they weaken it sufficiently, it coils up and from it sprays a blood that burns, blackening armor and forcing Vossler to retreat in pained and hissing haste. Fran also withdraws with a pained cry and the splash of it’s acid-blood stings Balthier’s extended hand, burns his palm and coats his gun until the instinct is to drop it. _Damnable Espers-always one last trick up their sleeves!_

 _Strike now and bain’s power is your subdued_ _  
_ _Make quick to bend it to your hand._

He steadies his hand on the slick grip of his gun, feeling the hot burn of acid against his palm, the way the wood grips themselves seem hot to his touch, as if they’re corroding, and fires. The bullet finds its mark in the creature’s eye, and it writhes and fades back to the Mist that formed it. Balthier drops his gun, clutching his hand red-raw and oozing blood.

 **Your strength…** the Esper’s voice fades as its presence recedes. **...is worthy…** The Mist fades back into the statue. Balthier looks toward his companions—Fran is pouring the contents of a potion phial onto the worst of the burns on Vossler’s arms and chest. Balthier meets her gaze and understands he can expect her ministrations next.

 _Our power is worthy, but none here might make the Esper’s bond-bargain?_ He wonders.

 _Pluck down the stone from ‘tween lion’s teeth_ _  
_ _And yours to summon is this Esper wroth._

Balthier casts his gaze toward the statue, shimmering now with faint light, and steps toward it. Truly enough, he can see that the gleam originates from within the thing’s open, snarling mouth at the back of the throat. _Stones again_ , he thinks, putting forth his injured hand. The carved rock scrapes unpleasantly on his raw, burnt skin, but the cryst comes free into his grasp. _All the misery in the world seems to take the shape of such stones._

“Balthier—?” Frans’ s voice comes concerned to him as he examines the stone in his hand. It is not quite like any he’s seen before—and he has not previously known such a stone to contain an Esper. Her voice sparks a strange jealousy in him, but he fights it to hold their trophy aloft.

“Magicite,” he says, displaying it in his blooded hand. “Or—like no form of Magicite I have yet seen.”

“Come and let me heal your hand,” she insists, looking at him with her posture tight and erect, and her nostrils flared. She’s on alert for _something_ , and he’s not sure what yet.

He tucks the stone away into one of the pouches at his waist, and wipes the worst of the stinging acid from his palm, pausing to pick his gun up with a handkerchief. What venom had sprayed on it has left it (and the hand that held it) scarred and pitted. It seems like it lost the worst of its potency when the Esper faded back into its resting state, but the weapon will still need repair. Fran waits for him to give his hand to her for inspection, red eyes piercing him.

“It’s not a grave hurt,” he promises. “It stings some, but—”

She gives him a look that suggests she will decide for herself, and considers his hand. “It is quite deep in places.”

“But nothing a potion won’t fix, or restorative magicks when we get back to the Strahl.” He realizes suddenly the trouble, and Vossler look s back and forth between them. “You’re worried the stone will interfere with her ability to fly?”

“The stone is quiet,” she says. “At least, it no longer drinks in Mist.”

“I do feel more hale,” Vossler says, sheathing his sword. 

“Then—not Nethicite, and strong for macicite—ah!” Fran pours a potion on his palm and at first the shock of cold seems to burn nearly as much as the ichor had, but then the magicks imbued in the stuff take hold. Flesh begins to knit, leaving the skin first scabbed, then just pink and scar-shiny.

“I think it worth an early return,” Vossler agrees. “But to where? And should we check the other expansions of Jagd for similar stones?” 

“Questions for powers greater than us,” Balthier says. “Save where to take it, anyway. We’ll bring it first to where we might communicate quickly with all involved parties, and _they_ can decide what to do with the thing.”

But even as he says it and they accept it, Balthier feels the weight of the unusual thing at his side. The path out is just as quick, even the slow creep back of Mist cannot do much but raise a ghost or two in their path from the depths.

 _It has to go to Archades,_ he thinks, reduced to fighting with two daggers until he can repair his gun. _Only Draklor has the equipment to measure such a stone to full understanding._

* * *

6.3

He brings the stone to Archades after a flurry of negotiation that he influences in favor of this desired outcome. Basch and soon-to-be Emperor Larsa greet him at the Aerodome, Basch in the full guise of Judge Gabranth, with the attendance of a small regiment of judge-guards from his division. 

_A hell of a to-do, and all for me._ Balthier thinks. He draws up short enough at the sight that Vossler crashes into him on the gangway from behind, knocking Balthier forward a step off-balance.

“Sorry,” Vossler grunts, a steel like grip catching at Balthier’s arm and steadying him. “Why’d you stop?”

He can sense the pressure of Basch’s gaze on him, and he recovers with a grin. “Rather a warm welcome, Your Imperial Highness…”

“What did you find?” Larsa asks, smiling apologetically. He’s damnably tall now-nearly past Basch’s shoulder. He’ll be as tall, easily, as his brother had been and his features are slowly maturing, hardening into the elegant Solidor nobility. Too, he is growing the first scraggy signs of a beard. His hair has lengthened, but he wears it back and in a tail; Imperial, but markedly different from Vayne. 

“A most unusual stone,” Balthier explains. He’s aware of it at his hip, fist-sized and heavy. “Let’s talk of it in private.”

“Of course. This way, please,” Larsa turns to lead the way back to the palace, and Basch falls in beside Balthier. The group of armored guardsmen stepping in heavy, clanking time makes conversation while they walk impossible. _It feels as if I’m being escorted to prison._ Vossler seems unconcerned, but Fran’s attention is alert. _Something’s up_.

They leave the contingent of guards behind outside of the palace audience room, and Larsa looks nearly as relieved as Balthier feels to close the door with them on the other side.

“What’s changed?” Balthier asks, settling in against the wall in a comfortable lean—there are several chairs but all are lower than the dais-raised seat intended for Larsa, and he does not yet sit.

“Judge Magister Gabranth has received word from Dalmasca that some families invested in Draklor are displeased with the cessation of operations, and overall handling of the place,” Larsa reveals. “He believes the discontent should not receive public redress but—a show of securities prior to my coronation is a wise investment.”

“May I, Imperial Highness?” Basch requests.

The formality even in relative private—among friends of year’s time—rubs Balthier the wrong way. But Larsa nods permission, and Basch raises his hands to pull the heavy magister’s helmet free. “Forgive the show of parade best. We are engaging in a martial play, of sorts, but in dead earnest. Sometimes it is enough to show your enemy a sword and he will believe your intent to use it should he make it a necessity.”

“Well I never agreed to this mummery,” Balthier says, irritably. “Word from _Dalmasca_ , you said?” 

“Has the Queen been threatened?” Vossler demands, from somewhere just behind Balthier.

“Her majesty is safe,” Larsa assures. “The missive was in her hand but had the sound of birdsong to it.”

“That meddling—”

“We are grateful for the warning of the potential danger,” Basch says, cutting off Vossler’s angry tirade. “If it is nothing, it is nothing—my troops have proved their readiness for a crisis. If it is _something_ , we are ready.”

“That matter aside,” Larsa finally steps to the chair at the head of the table—not the raised chair on the dais—and sits. No one else in the room moves. “What have you found? The news you sent caused some concern.” 

“The cause of the spread of Jagd—at least in one area—can be attributed to an unusual artifact. We found a cave—that’s not so passing strange, but at the depths of this Mistless place, an Esper held guard over a stone, ” Balthier explains.

“An Esper?” Basch wonders. “I thought—surely we found plenty on our ways through the world. Never any that caused Jagd?” 

“I said it was curious,” Balthier explains. “We defeated the guardian and claimed the stone.”

Absently, his hand goes to the pouch at his hip,but he does not yet produce the stone, merely pats where it is safekept.

‘The stone drank Mist so thoroughly that all creatures that inhabited the cave surrounding it were slain,” Fran elaborates. “But for so many to lie in evidence—”

“It must have only awakened recently,” Vossler says. “There were generations of creatures in that place, all lying dead together. They would not have moved in and multiplied…”

“That _is_ strange, But it does not drink Mist anymore? Is it possible that more deifacted nethicite exists than those shards Raithwall cut?” Basch looks deeply concerned by this. “Or that it has been manufacted and planted, with the aim of some mischief?”

“The statue that held the stone was unknown to me in style and disposition, but the _feel_ of the place was… old. Far older still than Raithwall’s tomb.”

“I don’t think it to be Nethicite,” Balthier begins. His thoughts have been piling up against each other in the back of his thoughts. 

“It drank Mist,” Vossler protests. “Pulled enough magic from the very air that I felt weakened by it.”

“Perhaps the Garif, when the threat came of the gods reclaiming their stones, secreted some away?” Fran suggests.

Balthier lets the conversation go on without him. Something is nagging at his thoughts, some half-remembered thing from years past.

 **_The stones come not from Garif source_ ** **_  
_** **_But older magicks still were cleav’d from stone_ ** **_  
_** **_Too powerful in mortal hand._ **

_No, that’s not it,_ Balthier thinks. Back further, to when his father was still planning his ill-fated expedition to Giruvegan. Balthier remembers standing in the man’s office amidst all his scattered and open histories, lain out to pen pages and strewn through with notes. Balthier, exhausted from a day of drills and training, aching in his Judge’s armor, came to bid his father luck.

 _How desperately I wanted his pride in me,_ Balthier remembers. _For him to look at me and say anything that had my cursed name in it. But no, it was ever about fate, and those damned stones._

“Magicite makes mighty of us,” Cid said, eyes fever-bright and sleepless. “We can mine it, cut it from the earth and tame its power. But _nethicite_ \- a wild steed.”

“What more could we want?” Balthier asked, idly reaching out to spread the pages of his father’s handwriting out, just one of many piles. “Nethicite is too unpredictable—at best causing failures in machines, at worst, explosions on a grand scale.” 

“The gods gave Humes the means to hold it to harness once, Ffamran,” Cid beamed. His hands guided Balthier’s to a map, spreading his fingers over a Mist-shrouded place marked as unsafe for travel. “Which means it _can_ be. Perhaps it _should_ be. I have already begun to make it stable. That, in use with magicite and—if any yet can be found—auracite will steer the Empire to glory.”

 _That_ was it. Just once in passing, and the argument had gone on along different avenues but—a third sort of stone. Perhaps the key to it’s understanding is already in his grasp. _If the notes are not fraught with madness._

 **_In your grasp the stone shall shed secrets rare_ ** **_  
_** **_To your understanding given_ **

“Balthier,” Basch’s voice is soft and close, startling him. He realizes he’d closed his eyes to better pursue the memory. Basch stands near enough to touch, and all eyes in the room are upon him. ‘If you’ve taxed yourself to come so fast hither-or taken injuries on your journey, you can rest now. The stone and it’s disposition are curious, but they will wait.”

“No, I was remembering something,” Balthier feels a flash of irritation for the concern—he is not a delicate man, he can fend off a need for rest a few hours as need be. “It’s not yet important.”

“May we see the stone?” Larsa requests. “I trust your experience if anyone’s, but perhaps it can be identified with a proper description or researched in the Imperial library?”

Balthier feels again a petulant unwillingness to share his treasure—he had been so long denied repayment and so oft offered the Dusk Shard only to have it pulled from his grasp, but the childishness will not serve. He draws the stone free. In the light, it’s ruddy-pink glow seems diminished, but still visible. The stone is fist-sized, smaller than the shards of the sun-cryst Raithwall left, but it is veined through with some sparkling of quartz, and shaped cautiously by magic or hand into an egg-like shape. The scaled and coiled texture of it reminds Balthier of the Esper fastened to it. 

He lays it on the table, and Basch is the first to pick it up. A strange prickling warning crawling up Balthier’s spine comes to nothing with the stone lying inert in Basch’s hand.

“Can you summon the Esper within?” he asks, curious as to such a thing.

“At times, I think. We fought it to defeat not three days hence. It will take some time to recover, but…”

“It has given to Balthier its mark of service,” Fran says, firmly caging his hand in her clawed fingers and displaying his flat palm for the light. He finds he is surprised that there is a dark rune etched in his palm, under the healing flesh. He had not so much as looked at the injuries in the days since—merely felt that his hand was healing, as normal. “To his aid it will come, in time of need.”

“I see. Have we ever heard of the like?” Larsa asks.

Basch shakes his head, though he looks to Balthier for confirmation. 

“Give me some time to search the libraries,” Balthier says. “I will see if such a thing was known.”

“Would it be worthwhile to ask the Garif?” Vossler asks. “About the statue, at least?”

“We might try it, when all other options are exhausted. In the meantime, I would like to place the stone in safekeeping,” Larsa says. “Not knowing its provenance, it could be unstable.”

Balthier’s reach for the stone is aborted by Fran’s hand, still on his and now restraining. He hadn’t even thought to take it. “He means in Draklor.”

Her eyes burn into Balthier’s and she’s been damnably strange about the whole thing. He waves the whole affair off, shaking loose of her grip finally. “Very well. It has vaults for such unknowns, let it rest there until we weigh our answers.”

“That’s just what I was thinking, Balthier,” Larsa nods. “I thank you for your service, and we’re like to have need of your knowledge if that wouldn’t make you discomforted. Will you stay a few days? I shall open the palace resources to you.”

He glances at Fran for her opinion. Her eyes haven’t left him, and she nods, slowly. He accepts her judgment. “Well stay.”

“I’ll write to Her Majesty,” Vossler says. “I can't stay any longer than necessary, and if our investigation is done…”

“We’ll try to have an answer for you as soon as we can, Ser Azelas. In the meantime, you can at least be our guest for an evening?” 

Vossler glances up at the serenely decorated palatial room, as if measuring how much it will remind him of his imprisonment in Draklor.

“At my estate, if you like,” Basch offers. “All of you. There is space enough.”

“We will see,” Vossler mutters, looking next at Balthier. “It will at least be nice to sleep again in a bed. The hard hold floor of the Strahl is worse than the ground.”

“You can pitch a tent in the garden and make a proper comparison if you like,” Balthier answers, irritably.

“Be well,” Larsa mediates. “Take your leave Judge Magister, and I will see this delivered to the vaults.”

With that elegant dismissal, Larsa releases them all, but at the door Vasch sends the contingent of guards back in.

* * *

6.4

At dinner, Balthier does his best to charm his way into the maid servant's good-graces but she’s having none of it. Fran seems slowly to lower her guard, though he still doesn’t know what had so greatly unsettled her. After dinner, Basch does his best to host but Vossler quickly takes his leave upstairs to the guest quarters.

“Will you come and see my gardens, at least?” he requests, and there’s enough of his heart in the request that Balthier suspects something more to it.

“Your gardens? In the evening?” Balthier’s curiosity is piqued. 

“I have some rarities,” Basch says softly, but with a pride he can’t quite suppress. “It shouldn’t disappoint.”

“I can hardly resist a promise like that,” Balthier says, taking up the bottle of excellent Madhu that had been presented with dinner and refilling his glass to carry with him. The bottle gives out before the glass is full, to Balthier’s disappointment. “Fran?”

She considers, looking first in the direction Vossler went before she nods and gets to her feet. “I will walk with you for a time but I am tired.”

“I won’t keep you overlong,” Basch promises, before leading the way out through a pair of large, glass-paned doors. It’s cool outside, but the scent of something blooming becomes immediately apparent-a heady smell not quite like jasmine, but almost as heavy in the air.

“Blooms such as these lived in the Salikawood,” Fran remembers. Here, they are tamed onto trelliswork, vining their way up into the arches over the path. White flowers as pale as moonlight are each slowly unfolding in the night. “They open only at night.”

“It took some doing to get them to thrive here,” Basch explains.

The enthusiasm he wears practically overspills as Balthier touches one soft, velvety bloom. “You’ve taken up gardening?”

“They were in such a state when I came, I hardly had a choice.” Basch sighs. “Dyce informs me that they’ve been neglected before my arrival, seen as unimportant.”

Balthier’s quip about him becoming a gardener in his old age dies on his lips when he realizes the weight of this confession. Basch has broken away from the persona of Gabranth to take one thing of his own. He has come to make the place his own somehow, and found a pride in it. 

“They are happy here,” Fran says.

Basch turns a curious look in her direction and Balthier knows what’s coming from his years in her company.

“You can tell that?” Basch asks, his hand still twined into the vines affectionately. Even now he is winding loose tendrils back into the trellis attentively. 

“Yes,” she says mysteriously, as if the plants are whispering secrets in her lovely ears even now.

He raises his eyebrows slowly at her as if sensing the trap about to snap closed , then he decides to trip it anyway. “How do you know?”

“They are blooming, are they not?” Fran asks, and Balthier sees the pleased twinkle in her eye when Basch laughs—and how good he has always looked when he does it.

“That they are,” Balthier says, feeling a warmth in his middle—how he cares for _both_ of them. He finishes his madhu while Basch shows them around the rest of the garden, most of it still and silent in the night. He sets the glass aside idly somewhere for a servant to retrieve and puzzle over at a later time. When Fran leans in to kiss Balthier in her blessing before she disappears back in the direction of the house, he takes the hint.

Basch only notices her absence as they conclude the tour nearly back where they started, by the trellised walkways. “How does she move so silently in those heels?”

“A lady never tells her secrets,” Balthier says, and then, daringly under the arches of brooms of prized Salika lilies, he leans in to kiss Basch. It seems like ages since they’ve last had such a moment to themselves. Basch pulls him into his arms, and he’s warm in the night air, human and soft in clothes that are fine and silky under Balthier’s touch. For a time, there’s just a quiet between them while Basch kisses Balthier deep enough that he’s nearly dizzy with it by the time Basch finally leans back, as if he’s suddenly had a thought.

“I—wrote you a letter,” he admits. “I had thought to send it when all this was done—your survey and His Imperial Majesty’s ascension.”

“A letter?” Balthier is surprised. Basch has been sending letters and updates the entire mission, so this must be no hastily scribbled receipt of a report or directive updating him on most recent measurements of Jagd. A bright bloom of concern awakens under Balthier’s heart, like the fear of a cage. “What did it say?”

“That’s just it,” Basch reaches up idly. His hand palms over the curve of Balthier’s back, and then catches the swinging curve of the twist of metal in Balthier’s ear, trapping the lobe between his thumb and curled knuckle, toying idly with the earring and the pressure of his fingers. Balthier goes helplessly flushed and warm. It’s almost like Basch anticipates the nervous fidget in Balthier, and does it himself. “I never could make it say anything. It all sounds foreign, trying to do things like this in the crude allowances polite society makes for things such as these. Here, you must write as if someone else than the intended target may read it, or speak as if you might be heard.”

Balthier kisses him again, fondly. They are standing in his gardens as if they are two lovestruck teens washed together for stolen moments. “Captain, I think you have been reading entirely too many novels.”

Basch laughs, so softly only Balthier can hear as it paints a warm swath of breath over his cheek, and he nods. “It’s likely that you’re right. There’s damnably little else to do in the minutes I can catch for myself. And your commentary makes for a more entertaining read than the text itself.”

“Before we go in,” Balthier has to focus his thoughts as Basch gives another slow stroke to his ear, feeling each of the three piercings along the curve. “Tell me what you would say if no one was reading, and no ears to hear but mine?”

Basch looks delighted by the prospect, leaning in as if to share a proper secret, cupping Balthier’s ear. 

“I _want_ you,” he husks, in a way that leaves no denial of in what manner he means. It sets Balthier’s pulse skipping and jumping, wild with anticipation. Basch continues, “I want you any time you think of me, to come and let me remind you of why you do. And I want you to think of me _often_ , Balthier.”

It’s no claimant’s stake, though the tight embrace at Balthier’s middle reminds him of how close they are. It does more than touch Balthier at the surface, it reaches deeper and tugs something desperate loose at his depths. He doesn’t want to back off of Basch long enough to get inside and see this through, here the darkness can cover enough—he pushes his mouth against Basch’s again. His hands have two handholds at the front of Basch’s shirt, and there is no space at all between them like this. He can feel Basch hard against his thigh as he tries to lick deep enough into the man’s mouth to—to what? _Feel satisfied? Taste_ the veracity of Basch’s words?

Balthier has never once been satisfied with just one thing, but today what he _wants_ , how long it’s been (a year, only a year, a year _entire_ ) opens up at his center and threatens to consume him.

“Balthier,” Basch manages softly—Balthier has long since closed his eyes and abandoned himself to the tight-chested heavy feeling in his blood. He is rubbing himself into and against Basch like a cat. The rough sensation of his own clothes on his skin feels grounding and overwhelming all at once. 

_Have I had that much to drink?_ Balthier wonders, but he can’t put a number to the glasses of Madhu he’s had. Surely not enough for this anxious _heat_ under his skin. “I want you. I’m thinking of you _right now_ , damn you Captain.”

“We can go—” Basch starts to move, heading sensibly for the house.

Balthier plants his feet, then pushes when Basch is off balance, into the hedgerow over his initial protest as they crash through the scratching branches of his well-manicured bushes. The ground’s uneven with roots, and all that saves the both of them from a fall is how tightly they have ahold of each other.

Inside, it’s crowded and branches push and scratch at Balthier’s back, but it is private enough for _this_ . It smells like frigid air and evergreen when Balthier bruises his knees on the roots with his sudden drop, _aching_ to have Basch inside him and uncaring the method by which he achieves this. He’s pawing the catch of Basch’s belt, yanking and tugging nearly mindlessly until Basch puts his hands firmly on Balthier’s shoulders and makes to push him back.

“Let me,” Balthier breathes, begs. “ _Let_ me.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Basch wonders, stricken. 

The daring wildness in Balthier ignores the freezing and lumpy ground beneath his knees and dares him into the only answer that makes sense. “You, If I have anything to say about it.”

Basch grunts—he is not unaffected either, by the way his cock is filling the front of his pants. “Here?”

“There is nowhere else we might be _right now_ ,” Balthier returns, and the belt clasp at last surrenders it’s fastening beneath one final tug, and he pushes it aside without bothering to pull it from the loops. He undoes the ties on the front of the man’s pants and frees Basch’s cock into his hands and the cold air.

“Balthier,” Basch growls, but it’s not a ‘stop’. “What if someone—”

Balthier applies his mouth to the head of Basch’s cock, lathing his tongue against the head until Basch’s words fade, and after just a second of tension and stillness, Basch pulls him closer with a full-bodied shiver. One hand grips Balthier’s shoulder and the other tries fruitlessly to try and get a steadying handhold in the bushes that are still pulling at Balthier’s clothes, scratching into his hair. Balthier feels, with his lips on Basch’s cock, the half dozen branches he snaps off and drops into the dirt before he finally just reaches behind him and clamps his hand to the central stalk. 

“We’re _barely_ hidden,” Basch whispers harshly, and Balthier isn’t sure who the reminder is for, but he makes answer only by pulling Basch deeper into his mouth with a lewd noise. “Ah—Balthier!”

His voice is rough and desperate enough that Balthier _knows_ he’s doing well, despite the way the hard roots are digging into his shins. He holds Basch just behind the knee, his other hand gripping and pawing at his own cock through his pants in a desperate effort. Later, he suspects he’ll have to explain. Now he lets his mouth fill with the taste and weight of Basch and the intimate scent of him filling his nose. Balthier lets his eyes close; this next part takes focus, and he lets go enough to give.

When Basch’s cock presses to the back of his throat it’s a practiced swallow, a struggle against the reflex to expel something entering beyond where he would gag and refusing to swallow down; it’s bright and sharp in his awareness—a sense of near-danger as he gulps and swallows to fool his body’s instinct to choke, and then he has to sit back just enough to breathe before he plunges down again, like diving to an unknown depth and reaching—- _reaching,_ letting Basch ride in small, rough thrusts into his mouth until he’s seeing sparks even behind his closed eyelids.

Basch is quiet, but one hand is in Balthier’s hair, squeezing and relaxing in rhythm, and his breathing is starting to falter. Balthier pulls back, enough to breathe, but he presses the flat of his tongue firmly against the head of Basch’s cock and _rubs_ , insisting, wanting to render him just as unwilling to resist. When the dizziness again subsides, he swallows Basch down again and this time, the working action of his throat does the job. Basch pushes his hips forward with a strangled cry and Balthier can feel the hot spatter of release hit the back of his throat as he lets it pour willingly into him. 

Basch is gasping for breath as Balthier lets his cock go soft in his mouth, a slow teasing as Basch comes down with the occasional shiver of a man chilled—or wrung pleasurably dry. 

His mouth tastes like salt and spend instead of fine madhu when Balthier sits back off the roots that have pressed aching marks into his knees and shins, and fights to his feet in the smashed hedgerow, pulling Basch against him.

“I can’t say,” Basch reaches up in the dark and pulls a bit of broken and leafy twig out of Balthier’s hair to let it fall. “I’ve ever had sex in a _bush_ before.”

Balthier hums in answer, arms around Basch’s middle. He has a dozen more propositions for the man when suddenly there’s a step on the path nearby. Both men freeze.

“Ser?” the manservant. “You’re alright? There’s a commotion and it’s past middle-night.”

Basch hisses, then calls back. “Nothing to worry about, Dyce—”

Balthier near anticipates the coming excuse even before Basch can give it, though the inventiveness is new to him.

“I lost my garden gloves and thought I must have left them in here,” Basch calls back, and then in an undertone for only Balthier’s ears. “Surely my dignity is on the ground here somewhere.”

“Do you want a hand lookin’ for ‘em, ser?” Dyce’s tone suggests he doesn’t believe a word of it, but the man is old Archadian stock through and through. If his employer suggests a ruse, he will play it to the full of the act.

“No, Dyce, sorry to disturb you.”

Balthier has the sudden urge to laugh, standing in a bush with his flagging erection and at _least_ it wasn't the maidservant with her shrieks. He jams his knuckles in his mouth to keep the sudden fit of laughter silent, just a heaving in his chest and shoulders. 

“Ser,” Dyce’s voice comes back cautiously. “If I may—it might be wiser to search for your gloves in the daylight?”

“I was just coming to the same conclusion,” Basch calls back, with a forbidding look at Balthier that only serves to spark a fresh wave of mirth. “I’ll be in presently.”

Dyce seems content to stand and wait for such a happenstance to occur. Basch yanks his belt out of Balthier’s grip and begins reassembling himself. Balthier tries to fully disentangle himself, but the branches and leaves catch at him, snapping in place.

“You can go ahead, Dyce,” Basch says after a moment. “Thank you.”

“Good night then, ser,” Dyce moves away, carrying his lantern with him and likely muttering to himself.

Balthier emerges with twigs and leaves clinging to him and offers his hands back to help Basch out and onto the settled stone path. They’re both a sight—clothes in a disarray, sticks clinging, and Balthier can still feel the heat of his flush, the raw feeling in his throat.

“That's sure to be trouble in the morning,” Basch says, plucking bits of broken bush off himself. 

Balthier _does_ laugh at that, finally, big and helpless. “You’re too old for trouble of that sort, you know. You can set your own curfew.”

“I can’t stop it from scandalizing their sensibilities. I hardly worry what he thinks, just that I will endure a lecture, and that it might come back to you.”

“Good thing I’ve already got a bounty on my head and we’re both men capable of caring for ourselves.”

“Inside,” Basch orders. “Any other mischief can wait for a real bed and the privacy of my quarters.”

* * *

6.5

Balthier wakes warm and comfortable with the firm and reassuring press of another body draped over and around his own. The surroundings are not immediately familiar.

A sense of panic seizes him and Balthier surges suddenly from the comfortable blankets, aware suddenly of how sore he is and where. Basch grumbles faintly, not yet even awake. He has always been slow to rouse.

 _Did I sleep here?_ Balthier feels revolted at the idea, somehow, upset at his lapse of habit. He gathers his scattered underclothes quickly from the chamber’s fine wooden floor and begins to pull them on rapidly. He’s overstayed—gotten far _too_ comfortable with Basch. Yet what exactly concerns him about it, he couldn’t say. He wants _out_ and into the world, and so even without washing up or putting his waistcoat back on, he hurries out of Basch’s room before the man can wake.

**_Even birds roost to ground when comfort’s seek’d._ **

_Not this bird_ , Balthier corrects his own thoughts—of late he has barely felt himself. He is in a rush down the hall when he rounds the corner at speed and crashes into the maidservant with her tea-tray and she clucks and sputters as they’re both thrown off balance. Suddenly the both of them are splashed and wetted with hot tea, and Balthier’s still only half-dressed. Instinctively, he does his best to catch the plummeting tray but the two cups atop it crash to the ground and in steadying the pot he burns his fingers. 

Millicent’s eyes meet Balthier’s over the tea-tray now spoilt for delivery and he hardly needs to guess at the reason for how quickly they narrow in irritation at him.

“ _You_ again, and of course up to trouble,” she says. She pushes the tea-tray forcefully into his hands in the expectation that he will hold it while she crouches to pick up bits of smashed tea-cup. 

“I’m—” Balthier starts, but the absurdity strikes him. Here he stands in a fine Archadian estate, a _Judge Magister’s_ household—feeling the soreness and satiation of his pleasure and weathering the ire of a servant who has never liked him. But that she’s had the chances to formulate much of an opinion on Balthier at all...

 _Why am I still here?_ He wonders. Not just—holding a tray and dripping tea onto the rug while Millicent cleans up fragments of teacup, but—in Archades at all. _All this running, can’t I ever escape the orbit of this place?_

 **_With powered stone the skies are yours commanded._ ** **_  
_** **_Seek within the depths where leg’cy is kept._ **

The stone. He shifts the tray in his hands to peer at his palm, where the sigil mark still shows faintly. Auracite? Had even his father ever found any? He has a way to know—his father’s notes secreted safely within the Strahl.

“If only you were a little less quiet, ser, is all,” Millicent is muttering into the silence between them, obviously piqued by the accident and worried about his reaction, but not so much as to not voice her thoughts. “Magister Gabranth is obviously happier when you’re around, but that’s not so for the rest of us. If only you’d come in through the front door…”

“That’s not my style,” he tells her, without the reminder that he’d come in through the front door last night. He keeps his voice kind. Returning again and again for comfort isn’t his style either. He wants to tell her she’s seen the back of him forever, and then put wings to sky within the hour, leaving all of this behind again before it entangles him as thoroughly as it had the last time. 

_Judges and Emperors_. He hands the tray back to her when she’s done picking up the shards. 

“I’ll bring fresh tea and breakfast for you both, ser. Now’s about the time the Magister likes it.”

 _They know. Of course. No secrets in an Archadian household._ All this, and she’s still trying to make peace. Balthier shakes his head. “I’m off on my own. Things to do.”

His excuse sounds weak even to himself, but the longer he stands the more the walls seem to close in. He departs quickly and is surprised to still be wet and dripping with tea when he finds himself at the Royal Way’s secret entrance to Draklor.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

**7.1 Basch**

“He smashed up the tea set and ran off, ser,” Millicent looks worried—Basch is starting to believe that’s her default state. “I told him I’d bring breakfast up, but he ran off like his backside were burning.”

Basch is still waking up as she bustles around in his room to gather up the mess of their occupation the night before. A glance at the clock is a mistake—it’s time to be awake, but he and Balthier had been up until the _very_ early hours before Basch had dozed off with the rare experience of the pirate in his arms. In fact, everything about the prior evening had felt rare. 

“Anyway, I have your tea here, ser,” Millie continues. “And breakfast, too. You’ve got a meeting just before middle-day with the Emperor and the royal florist.”

Basch starts to sit up just at the same time Millie realizes she’s collected _every_ item of his clothing off the floor. Luckily, he realizes that the item she’s inspecting is his unders, before he throws back the covers. He leaves the blankets over his lap as he reaches for the tea. _It’s going to be a long day._

She appears to be doing some kind of mental math based on her observations over the last few hours, so he sips his tea. “I was up late.”

“Mister Dyce said you were, ser,” She agrees, quickly stuffing his unders into the pile of gathered clothes. “The Viera woman is downstairs having breakfast proper if you like to join her. I’m told Ser Azelas was up at dawn and went to take advantage of an offer to join the guards on the training grounds, so that’s all our guests to the four winds. If I may say, ser, I never expected a Judge Magister to keep such interesting company.”

Her chattiness seems to be a sign of nerves, as she covers over for her faux pass of staring too long at his underwear. He wishes she’d brought even the thimble-sized cup of coffee that Dyce usually does, but he has a second cup of tea to compensate, as her words slowly penetrate into his thoughts and begin making full sense. “Fran is downstairs?”

“Yes, ser,” she says. Pointedly she gathers up his robe and comes to lay it just at hand for him to dress in. “At the staff table. She insisted the dining table was too big for friends to share in the morning. Must be some Viera thing.”

_Fran’s here, but Balther went bolting out? Very strange._ “Thank you, Millie, that’s all. I’ll be down as soon as I’m dressed.”

She nods, and carries away her armload of laundry and he gets sorely to his feet. _If he wasn’t meeting Fran somewhere, what was the rush?_

Basch begins the process of dressing for the day, finding the sink also untouched. All signs point to unusual haste, but Balthier is peculiar in his ways to say the least. Basch shaves, washes with careful attention (Viera have sharp noses) and goes to ask the expert about it.

He finds her seated at the smaller staff table with a cup of coffee in her hand and perusing a book from his library. She doesn’t look like she has any particular concerns after she’d abandoned them the night before. 

“Good morning,” Basch greets, settling at the table across from her. A tray with pastries and butter has been set out in the middle of the table and he claims one. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she says, casting a telling glance at the doorway behind him. “Your guest rooms are very luxurious and far away from your quarters.”

“Unusual thing to note,” Basch says. “Balthier made a quick exit this morning. Did he have something to attend? An early appointment to keep?”

“An early exit?” Fran sounds surprised. “To where?”

“He didn’t wake me to say.” Basch is now faintly concerned. Balthier has never stayed before but always had the excuse of being off to his next location or back to Fran’s side. “He ran into my maidservant in a hurry and broke some teacups, so it would seem he was in a rush.”

“Strange,” Fran says.

“Has he been strange, lately?” Basch can only describe the previous evening as unusual.

“Decidedly,” Fran says. “Since we found the stone he’s had a change in mood. I had thought that with its surrender he had gone past whatever the fascination was.”

Basch considers that. “Is it possible it called bad memories to mind? I know he has trouble still with the memory of his father.”

Fran nods, but seems unsure. “Perhaps that was a part of it. But—after we fought the Esper and subdued it, it was as if he could think of nothing but…”

She shifts, suddenly, looking toward the general direction of the door. “Getting his hands on the stone.”

That strikes uncertainty into Basch. “The stone? But it’s in the vaults at Draklor.”

“Do you think that would stop Balthier?”

Basch supposes it hadn’t the first time. The vaults were perfectly secure from every outside attempt—having been designed by Doctor Cid himself. But if anyone is a match for that keen mind in disposition and intelligence—well, Basch hadn’t once thought they might have to keep it safe _from_ Balthier.

“I suppose not but… why steal it? He could have it for asking.” Basch gets to his feet.

“Not to research for purposes unknown,” Fran says, and Basch knows she’s right but hates to think of it.

“We may be overreacting needlessly,” he says as she joins him on her feet.

“Let us go and see, then.”

She leads with quick steps and out the front door as Fran makes quickly for the Aerodome. Basch’s steps feel heavier as they get closer. “Would he really leave you behind?” 

“If he thought I would stop him from what he thinks he needs do,” Fran mutters in answer and her tone is clear with displeasure. “Or try to part him from what is whispering in his ear.”

“The Esper?” Basch asks.

“Mayhaps,” she stops just inside the concourse, inhaling deeply, and then hurries past the counters toward the docks. “He has been here.” 

“And gone,” Basch discovers with her as they come to the empty place the Strahl was moored.

They trade a long glance and both know the truth—he has claimed the stone; he has all the notes, too, of his father’s research. Basch looks up at the sky as if to measure it, or hoping to catch some glimpse of the ship. 

“Where will he go?” Basch asks.

Fran tosses her head in a ‘no’ gesture; she doesn’t know. “Wherever his father commands him to.”

* * *

7.2

Fran takes her leave to seek word of Balthier from the flight desk concierge, but she doesn't seem to hold out much hope that he will have left word of his destination. He promises to put his own resources to work, but neither had anticipated this. Both pledge to send word as soon as they have any.

He makes it on time to the meeting with the royal florist, but winded in his armor and through he stops to compose himself outside of Larsa’s sight the Emperor is quick to notice.

“What troubles you, Judge Magister?” Larsa asks. Basch is glad to see the assigned duty of guards present—these are Zargabaath’s men today. Seasoned and well-trusted, but strangers to Basch.

“Your Imperial Majesty, if I might approach.” Basch dreads having to give the news but knows Larsa needs to hear it. 

“Of course,” Gabranth. Come and confer with me.” 

Basch steps up onto the dais and leans into Larsa’s ear, aware that all the judges on duty are training their attention on him, alert—as they have been instructed—for even the slightest sign of treachery. “Balthier has gone missing this morning. We think it’s likely he took the stone.”

Lara’s face changes slowly, but then he nods, once, firmly. “No possibility he has just gone to make a quick study of it? Some whim of theory?”

“I don’t think so,” Basch knows that if _Fran_ is concerned, it’s serious. “But possibly he’s had a change of heart about leaving it in care of the Empire—or _any_ nation.”

“We can’t know his intent if he hasn’t told it to us, and he doesn’t seem to think we’re trustworthy enough—or he has a feeling we might try to stop him?” Larsa shifts glancing toward the door. “It’s good that only a few know of the discovery.”

“Shall I put—” Basch starts, and then stops. He can’t stand the idea of announcing Balthier traitor enough for apprehension. He knows this action needs some sort of redress, especially since the artifact had been stolen from the secure vaults—as had Cid’s research. The first together with the second is especially troublesome. But to call for his capture or put a bounty on his head… it will destroy his friendship with the man, and Basch doesn’t have the heart.

_I’m sorry, Noah, I can’t be your replacement with that much faith._ He regroups himself.

“Not yet, my friend,” Larsa says. “Be at ease. I have seen such stones tear enough families apart.”

“Yes, Imperial Majesty.”

“We’ll let our friends know to keep their eyes out for him. Soon enough his whereabouts will come to light, or he’ll return to us on his own.”

Basch nods, relieved, and then steps down from the dais, sure that the florist will still need to be next, the overall appearance of normality maintained for Archades. It will give the others time to work. 

When his day of meetings and providing for the emperor’s personal safety ends, Basch waits until he and Larsa can be alone to discuss the matter just as they’re exchanging a meaningful glance, a last hurried page comes in.

“Your Imperial Majesty, the Dalmascan Knights-Master is outside, and he’s quite insistent on an audience with you two?”

_Vossler_. Basch could hit himself.

“Well, see him in. I’ll escort him with Judge Gabranth to my office,” Larsa says.

“Right away, Imperial Majesty.” the page bows, and goes back.

Barely has he swung the door open when Vossler storms in, dark-eyed and scowling. “Eight hours, Judge Gabranth, and me alone stuck at your estate with whispering servants everywhere. You couldn’t leave me word about what you were up to?”

“Vossler,” Basch starts, but then corrects himself as he closes them into the semi-private of Larsa’s office. “Ser Azelas, you have my apologies. This morning was extremely hectic.”

“I’ll say,” Vossler crosses his arms over his chest and looks them both over like he senses the trouble that has happened—and is yet coming. “I went to bed early to avoid your moon-eyed staring at that damnable _pirate_ , went out to train, and returned to find the whole house abuzz with the irregularities of your morning, but none of them save your headman had half a clue what to do with themselves.”

“I left in a hurry. Fran and I needed to make for the Aerodome in haste.” 

“ _Why?_ ” Vossler is in no mood for the long route to an explanation. “Now that your hasty mission is complete, why—when we’ve yet to hear anything back from the Queen or come to any decision on what to do with the stone—has everyone been in such a secretive rush without me?”

Basch takes a deep breath and hears how it echoes in his helmet. He has no real idea of how to handle this, but Vossler deserves the truth.

“We were about to send for your aid, Ser Azelas,” Larsa intercedes on Basch’s behalf. “The matter at hand requires delicacy and that we keep up appearances. As yet, it might still be handled with discretion. If others in Archades become aware they will insist the proper order of things be followed. I fear we do not have time to put this before the council for a decision, nor are we likely to get a desirable outcome for all parties if that’s the case.”

Vossler goes quiet at this, his sense that something _was_ wrong is appeased, and he relaxes slowly into the attitude of someone listening. “What’s happened?”

“Balthier is missing,” Basch says. 

Vossler bristles visibly at that. “How? Why?”

“It seems the stone held some fascination he could not resist,” Larsa says quietly, deliberately. Even here he is cautious with his words.

“That damned pirate,” Vossler grinds his teeth into a grimace. “I know he wasn’t to be trusted. Ever with his eyes on some _treasure_ and ever ready to prove himself a thief.”

“By rights, the Esper is his,” Larsa reminds. He makes a calming motion to Vossler that seems only to stoke the man’s ire, if anything. “He has a claim to the stone that outmatches ours, but we are… worried.” 

“A _claim?_ ” Vossler growls. “To go off and do as he pleases and leave three nations in the lurch? Uh—your Imperial Majesty.”

Larsa waves off the necessity for formality, especially this tacked-on variety that seems an afterthought to their words. “We are not sure if it’s even worth anything beyond some curiosity. We might look where the Jagd is growing fastest to see if we can’t find another. Though why _now_ such things are coming to our attention, I am unsure.”

Vossler doesn’t follow. It’s written clearly on his features that he is going to hang onto the topic of Balthier like a dog with a choking hold. “Surely you don’t mean you’re going to let him just… keep it?”

The idea surprises Basch as well. He had hardly expected a reaction like _that_ from Larsa. The Emperor leans forward, meeting Vossler’s formidable gaze. “Do you suggest some other method? Know you of anyway to part someone from an Esper bond when they have made one?”

Vossler shakes his head. “And we have no idea where he’s spirited himself off to?”

“Fran is still—or was this morning—in the city. He left her, too, behind,” Basch admits, hoping this will help Vossler see some of the severity of the situation. 

“He—left _Fran_ ?” It does seem to sober Vossler. “What says _she_ about all this, then?”

“She is worried,” Basch says. “Concerned for the… influences over Balthier.”

“Greed,” Vossler snorts uncharitably, but he softens some. “Why not track him down, then?”

“A cornered animal becomes all the more desperate and fierce,” Larsa says. “And at present our resources are still limited, I would not want to send someone I did not trust. Fran is sure to find him, if anyone.”

“So in the meantime we just—wait?”

Basch doesn’t like it any better—he feels a worry and heaviness in his heart. He wants to help his friend—dreads the idea of losing Balthier and being powerless to stop it. 

“We put our ears to the ground, wait, and smile as if nothing is wrong the way all of Archades does at any given moment. We will be grateful for her Majesty’s help and if he can be convinced, I bet Al-Cid will have some luck in learning where our friend went,” Larsa sits at last, not in his chair but on the edge of his desk. “If you would carry this news with haste and discretion back to Dalmasca, you will have my gratitude, Ser Vossler.”

Vossler only hesitates a second—long enough to just glance at Basch—before he nods his acceptance. “Of course, your Imperial Majesty. I can be ready to depart within the hour.”

“Very well. You have my thanks in this. Gabranth will see you back to his estate and I’ll make the arrangements for a ship,” Larsa is decided on the matter. Basch hates to leave him, even for this duration, but accepts the duty of escort.

They make it nearly back to the estate before Vossler asks. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Basch follows his instinct to protect his feelings, especially from Vossler. He knows Vossler doesn’t care for Balthier—certainly has no interest in making any effort to understand who he is and what built him that way. 

Vossler looks at Basch frankly. “You were fucking him in the bushes of your garden just last night, and today after all this, you’re fine?”

Basch eyes Vossler, waiting to pick apart his usage of the vulgarity, to deflect onto _how_ Vossler could know that. But none of that will make him feel any better, so he stays quiet.

“You were loud enough to wake the whole house—but I know what you sound like when you’re in danger,” Vossler reminds. “Better your houseman went out to see what was up than I came to drag you out and call you to task.”

“I’m—not alright,” Basch doesn’t see any way around admitting it. “But I don’t know his mind, either. If he was—hurt—or worried, I’d have thought if not me, he would at least go to Fran.”

“Balthier has spent most of his very-short adult life convincing himself that he is someone who does as he pleases and damn everyone else.” Vossler reaches out to swing the front door of the estate open. “And I’m not having any more of this conversation with that damned helmet. Come on.” 

Inside, Basch finds Dyce waiting expectantly, and he turns over his helmet, gauntlets and gorget quickly before Vossler leaves him behind, headed for the guest quarters tucked in on the lower floor under the library on the first floor.

“I have to pack,” Vossler explains as Basch falls into pace with thim. “It’s not much but I have some things Her Majesty requested.”

Basch nods. He sighs, and pulls the door closed behind them. “I’m sorry for how all this ended. I would never have thought… Well, I thought the one man who might find no use for Nethicite or other macicks and best knew their dangers…”

Vossler folds his small array of finery into his travel trunk, atop several bolts of Archadian fabric. He concedes,”I would have agreed with you before now.”

“What’s changed?” Basch asks, more of the situation than Vossler’s opinions on Balthier.

“The stone, maybe. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No, I’m not sure Balthier hasn’t, though.” Basch worries about the danger again.

“Should be a simple enough matter to review Doctor Cid’s research notes,” Vossler says, and Basch goes still. Vossler looks at him curiously. “You have them, don’t you? He was _there_ , you know. When they did this to me.”

Vossler presses his hand over his chest and though it’s covered with a shirt, Basch knows one of the deepest scars is there—right where he put it.

“I didn’t know,” Basch says. “It was his notes that led us to you—I only wish we were faster.”

Vossler waves him off. “I have been more cruelly treated in my life and I owed the time—spent it thinking about how I might repent to Dalmasca.”

“Did any of your plans look like this?” Basch asks.

Vossler closes the trunk. “None at all.”

Little surprise, then. Basch has to admit the truth. “We don’t have Cidolphus’ notes. Balthier does. He’s the one that tracked down the reference to your project.”

Vossler looks at Basch for a long time. “You’ve really let him run roughshod over the Empire. Aren’t you supposed to be a Judge Magister?”

“He saved Rabanastre, and without his eyes we’d never have found you,” Basch reminds. “If anyone’s entitled to the notes… we thought— _I_ thought—they were safest with him, rather than in this pit of ambition and eagerness.”

Vossler grunts at that. “Well, then we’d all better hope your instinct is right. That stone could be as dangerous as any of the deifacted ones that caused us such trouble, so we’ll have to trust we can either find him or stop him.”

Basch doesn’t like the sound of it, but he knows it’s the truth. If it comes to it, and the stone has some power over him, they’ll all have to do what it takes. “I know. But I hope—I hope he doesn’t let it get to that.”

Vossler reaches out and clasps his hand to Basch’s arm, as he had countless times when they were younger men, as they’d grown and trained and fought their many wars. “You can still do your own research, Basch. Perhaps you can find a way to stop it. For what it’s worth, I wouldn't see you lose him.” 

He pauses, then lifts his trunk and Basch moves to help, but Vossler brushes past him, carrying the load easily. “I don't _like_ the man, but I’ve seen how—somehow amidst even all _this_ nonsense—he makes you happy.” 

Basch can only nod and hope that such won’t come into conflict with his duty as Judge Magister.

* * *

7.3

_My dearest Judge Magister,_

_It is with heavy heart I write to you that the prized bauble has yet slipped our hands. My earlier letter brought hope that perhaps it might be found along the borders southernmost between Dalmasca’s Sandsea and Rozzaria , but all that was found was an empty warren much in the condition we were told to expect. I know this mark is important to you, but it is also sly and slippery. We find signs it journeyed north of here. As our ships can’t fly over the Jagd of the Sandsea, we will have to go around and are like to lose him in the pursuit._

_My little birds are becoming Falcons truly on such a hunt. If you come across anything, let me know—any chance to anticipate a move may finally put us in the head of the chase._

_Take heart and be well, you do not seek unaided. Your friends, too, have joined our search._

_-Earnestly, A.C.M._

_Magister Gabranth,_

_I share your worries for our friend. You can be assured that what resources can be spared will be given over to the location and assistance he deserves. My thoughts, too, are with you. I hope that when all this is done, we might find a chance to speak. I think often of our past these days._

_Knights-Master Azelas sends his begrudging regards. He has been spending many hours in the palace archives, trying to locate histories and comb them for further information. I have included passages from some, perhaps they’ll help._

_Be well and thank you for your last letter._

_-HRH Queen Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca._

_I have word of Balthier’s presence in several areas near Jagd where it is increasing. I suspect the artifact we discovered was only the first of several. I follow at the fastest pace I may. I know you have been researching as best you can around your other preparations, but if anything comes to your attention that might send me in the correct direction, please send it quickly to Balfonheim. Here I will remain for two days to rest and negotiate for passage on another ship._

_-Fran_

Fran-

I am sending as quickly as possible all of the information I have gathered from our library as well as from Dalmasca’s, and a list of areas where Jagd is increasing according to the reports we have received. I hope they serve you in your search.

-G.

_Judge Gabranth-_

_Nearly had him at the border of the Estersand. He is not himself. Still as slippery as ever. Can’t afford to chase any further with Dalmasca’s limited resources, but it seems he is collecting those stones after all. What the ultimate goal is concerns me. He was headed north, up toward the eastern border of Archades. If there’s a rhyme or reason to the order of his visits I can’t guess at it. Good luck._

_-Azelas._

_Hey! Hope you’re doing well, and tell Larsa ‘hi’ for us. We nearly have our airship up and running and we’re eager to help out. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m sure we can figure it out. Why does it always seem like everything happens all at the same time? No matter what, we don’t want to miss Larsa’s big day, so we’ll be there._

_If we haven’t found Balthier by then, I hope you can come with us. I bet if you and Fran are on the case it won’t be long! We’re worried, but if he’s made it this far, maybe what he’s doing is actually important? I wish he would just explain—or get in contact—or something?_

_Anyway, we miss you! We’ll see you soon. Sorry it won’t be in the best circumstances._

_-Vaan & Penelo _

Balthier,

I don’t know if this will find you or when, but I wish it will at least reach you in good health. I miss you. I have been trying to find what you’ve been doing, to get ahead so that we can understand, but if you feel strongly that these events you’re pursuing must come to pass, just send word. Give a sign that you’re conscious of what you’re doing and we will let you do it. I’ll do everything in my power to help, even. Just send word that you’re alright. Ease my worries for you.

My thoughts are with you. They can scarce be elsewhere. Please, I know the words are painful for you, but come home.

-B.

* * *

7.4

The weeks until Larsa’s coronation dwindle. Though they chase, Balthier stays out of their grip. Basch finds himself hard-pressed to arrange the security details and spend his evenings either in personal attendance to Larsa or at the Imperial library, digging for information. He slowly begins to piece it together, at least as far as what the stones might be.

Myths. Legends. No one recording the histories had ever seen one, but they had myths from their times about magicite—and it’s dark shadow, Nethicite. He finds the briefest mention of a third sort of stone nestled mysteriously between. _Auracite._

But all of it has the ring of mythic irreality. A country in the sky, judged by the Gods themselves for heresy and hidden; isolated from Ivalice below. There, massive stones called Auraliths could pull in power from the peoples, creating from their wills and _anima_ —the recorder of the legend offers a few potential translations for what this mysterious substance might be. _Blood, or life force (possibly in the form of sacrifices), parts of the soul (either immediately or on the death of the individual), or possibly a dedication of the will._

None are ideas that Basch much likes. But—why have they sprung to life now? Why the curious effect of increasing Jagd—and why were they all hidden in Jagd to begin with, for so many thousands of years until even their legends have become legend?

The one truth Basch becomes sure of is that there is a limit to the time, and it is running out . 

Time has already come for Larsa’s ascension to the throne. In Archades, this is a long and ceremonial affair. First, Larsa on his knees swears his service ever to the will of the people.

Then, one by one, all members of the re-established council come to stand before him in an exchange of ceremonial vows. It all feels interminably heavy, especially while Basch and Zargabaath—as well as many of the younger Junior Judge Magisters, and ranks and range of the Judges proper who are employed in the capital—must stand perfectly still and wait at sweating attention. Basch keeps his focus sharply on everyone who approaches Emperor Larsa.

Ashe is not in attendance, but a delegation from Dalmasca has come as well as one of Al-Cid’s older brothers, but they are sat tamely—mostly. Vaan and Penelo are with the Dalmascans, both dressed in elegant finery and trying not to squirm in their seats. Basch can’t blame them. While Dalmasca had celebrated its freedom and new ruler all at the same time, Archades instead slogs through their heavy traditions so that their people will hopefully not fear the coming changes to the stagnant way of life comes from someone who is, to them, an outsider.

There is dancing but it’s more a matchmaking affair, and Basch finds his attention wandering finally as his eyes—and all others—watch the process of Larsa taking a first dance with several of the eligible young women in attendance. His thoughts instead go to the world at large, and to the man he’s missing in it. The last time he’d watched dancing like this, Balthier had been real and _there,_ steps and eyes all confidence.

What he wouldn’t give for Balthier’s dry commentary on all this showmanship and rigid adherence to nothing but expectation. Basch can’t help but think of it like a mixed blessing—they’ve come this far but on the virtue of adhering to the right process of things, toeing the line and pretending that they are going back to the past.

Basch has spent three years standing in the place of another man to see Larsa safe enough to make it this far; yet how many more years will he have to stand protective over him to get Larsa through all these obstacles to his powers and influence and really—if that’s still even the plan—change things?

_You were right,_ Basch thinks, watching Penelo try to slip through the dancing pairs to make her way to Larsa and try to get a dance.

A familiar voice pulls Basch from his thoughts. “She thinks she doesn’t have a chance.”

He turns slightly to see Vaan standing next to him, hands raised behind his head like he does when he’s feeling cocky about something. Basch nods, just a little, aware of how the helmet amplifies his every motion. Basch glances back at the dance floor—awash with girls he’s never seen before. “She does. At least to dance. He’ll want a friend before the nights over, and she’s never stepped on his Imperial toes.”

“I told her that,” Vaan agrees. “But—things have been weird. The whole thing with Balthier has really shaken her.”

“Well, he _was_ always gallant when we put the spurs to him,” Basch remembers. It all seems impossibly long ago. Stepping into the Sandsea and finding the pirates under verbal assault by the angry Bangaa, Migelo. Balthier had given a lot of himself in that early admittance— _I don’t take kindly to getting orders._ But in his actions to rescue Penelo anyway, he’d shown far more of who he was.

“He’s always had trouble forging connections when he’s the one in need,” Basch says. “But that he left even Fran…”

“We’ll find him,” Vaan pipes up, sounding absolutely positive of the outcome. He passes the pad of his thumb back and forth under his nose, nodding. “I promise you. Maybe he won’t like it right away, but he’ll know why we did it someday.”

Vaan has really grown these last few years, Basch thinks. He has come a long way to some new understanding of himself and others. “Thank you.”

“We’d do the same for you,” Vaan points out. “You know, we thought about it a lot after that first year, when you decided you were going to do… well, all this, I guess.”

“Thought about what?” Basch wonders, unable to guess what Vaan means.

“Rescuing you.”

“I don’t need—”

“Mmm,” Vaan looks at Basch and grins. “I think every so often someone who works as hard as you do needs a little rescuing.”

Basch supposes that from Vaan’s place in the world, it might look that way, but he has respite—when Balthier comes. _Perhaps,_ he thinks with a sly glance through his helm at Vaan, _That’s why they lost the urge to ‘rescue’ me after a year._ Balthier was back on the board by then.

“Anyway, I just wanted you to know, we’re gonna help. I know you probably can’t come with us, but if you need a ride you can just call on us. We’re friends… however weird that seems.”

Out on the dancefloor, Penelo is getting into the rhythm of the dance, trading partner to partner now—many surprised to see her, but Basch can tell that any irritation rapidly fades when she proves herself an adept dancer. He knows after tonight, some will ask after her. _She’ll break some hearts, when they discover she’s no Archadian noble’s child._ She makes her way, slowly but surely, until she’s dancing with the Emperor, and near enough to whisper in his ear.

“It doesn’t seem so weird to me,” Basch says, at last. He has the comrades that life has given him, and despite the changes in where he stands now and how he stands there, they have stayed by his side.

“So… Auracite,” Vaan says. “Seems like probably why it was all hidden away is because it’s dangerous?”

“Or—something was waiting to let it loose,” Basch suggests, though who or what and to what purpose he isn’t sure.

“I don’t like the sound of that. Maybe we have to—I don’t know? Go to Giruvegan again? Ask the Occuria?”

It’s not as ludicrous as it sounds, nor is it as simple as all that. “It would have to be Her Majesty, and they’ve never really given us an answer we’ve liked.”

“But if this is another one of those plan-things they have,” Vaan says. “You know, guiding history to go their way, or whatever.”

Basch hasn’t thought of it like that. All this time dealing with the greater machinations of politics and elite peoples in Archades and he’s gotten lost in how long a game _that_ seems to be, and forgotten that there’s one greater still.

“Do you think, out of all of us, they could have subdued Balthier to their will?”

“Well, they got his dad,” Vaan points out. “And from what I understand he wasn’t always crazy—and he was smart and curious and ambitious, too.”

“All those things Balthier denies being,” Basch hasn't thought of it that way, but it’s not wrong. _Could it be…?_

“We know better. Anyway,” Vaan says. “We didn’t come to rain on your parade. We’ll be in touch as soon as we know anything.”

“I’ve been sending word to Balfonheim when I have it,” Basch says. “I’ll be sure to send copies for you as well.”

“Don’t worry, you can rely on us,” Vaan says, giving a big grin before he fades back into the crowd. 

Basch knows that they can all rely on each other, that’s why—with Balthier in trouble—they’ve all come together. So that the world can go on intact, but he hasn’t been forgotten either. _I just hope it’s enough even though it’s more than he would choose to allow._

* * *

7.5

The night stretches on and on and Basch only sees Larsa into his own quarters in the small hours of the morning, after reviewing with each of the guards on duty in the residence wing of the palace. He feels faintly uneasy, but Larsa is smiling and even through the tired haze he seems content. Basch can’t ask for more—even the nobles seem contented with the state of affairs—at least enough to let their daughters all dance, and no one has made an attempt on Larsa’s life, which in Archades is practically a right of passage.

He’s exhausted when he makes it back to the estate, walking slowly up the long ways through his garden though the weight of the armor—now on his shoulders for nearly twenty hours—bears heavy on him. The scent of the salika lilies brings him back in the weeks to the beginning of all these troubles. He remembers that Balthier had been unusually forward, desperate in a way Basch hadn’t expected.

He’d been so proud to show off the gardens that he’d built up, the work he’d put in to restore them from the dead and decaying state he’d found them in. Dyce had resisted at first—Noah never cared for the green spaces afforded him by his station, that much is clear, and it would be an obvious break from his history. Basch spent many hours digging and pulling things out by hand. At first he was sure it was never going to look good ever again.

But finally, he’d gotten to plant it again, and eventually it fruited and bloomed. When Dyce finally brought him a rare gift—Galbana lilies, the first grown on Archadian soil, though how Basch had struggled with them—he knew that the change was cemented. The lilies didn’t like the Archadian winters and had to be dug as soon as the nights showed any sign of frost, then brought in and insulated against the cold. But—beyond that, they were happiest to be left to fend for themselves in the worst possible parts of the garden.

He’s gotten to love seeing their blooms appear in unexpected places—once, seeming to sprout from bare rock. They thrived if you left them run to their own devices, and only occasionally brought them in from the cold. Maybe they remind him of someone. Now, with winter well on, the bed is empty and covered with insulating hay to enrich the soil for the next year’s planting. He lets his eyes linger on the empty place for a long time.

_What calls me more? Love and friendship or duty?_ He knows the answer he would give—his life is left to him so that he can serve with it. He knows too, the way Balthier would advise him— _follow your heart for once, Captain. You deserve a chance to do something selfish._

But what to do for himself? He looks at the empty bed of flowers and wishes the answer were more clear.

“Basch,” The voice comes soft into his awareness just before the strike of a heel on the path behind him in what he’s sure is a deliberate indication that she’s there. Fran steps out of the garden and he suddenly fears that the worst has happened. Her features are still serene in the moonlight, revealing nothing. 

“Fran,” he answers, turning to look at her. “Do you have news?”

_Please_ , he thinks, and then he’s not sure how to end the thought. He’d like news but not—not that it’s gone somewhere he can’t help. She nods.

“He has gathered many of the stones,” she says. “There are perhaps two more if he is not acting already. At the last I caught him emerging with his prize but—he would not heed me.”

It’s as he feared. Balthier is as lost in it as one might be if he isn’t listening to his oldest friend. “Something has ahold of him. Vaan thinks it might be the Occuria.”

She nods, and her eyes look concerned—real emotion evident for the first time since Basch has known her. “He is beyond my reach alone, but I thought together we might take him whether he likes to come with us or not.”

It seems like so drastic a measure, but if Fran is suggesting it, it means she thinks it’s in his best interest. At any other time, he suspects trying to hold or apprehend Balthier against his will or stop him about his business wouldn’t endear Basch or Fran to him at all. “Will he forgive us, if we have to capture him?”

“We will be freeing him,” Fran says with conviction. “Will you aid me?”

“I—” Basch knows what she’s asking, what it means. He will have to go with her—now, right away. Even the delay to decide might cost them the chance to stop Balthier before whatever godly purpose drives him to collect the Auracite comes to fruit.

“He is gaunt, Basch,” Fran says, quietly. “A man nearly spent. Help me save him.”

There is no name he’s ever answered to who would refuse such a plea from a friend—but that she calls him by the one he gave up is compelling. He will face a lot of trouble in this. “Let me at least write a report to Lord Larsa as to where I will be. It will serve none of us if he has to call for my head as a treason before we can recover and help Balthier.” 

She looks anxious, but eventually after what feels like a small eternity, she nods. “But you’ll come with me, tonight?”

“Right away,” he assures. “But not in this damned heavy armor.”

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**8.1 Balthier**

He can’t remember quite when his father joined him on this mission. At first silent—just a nearby presence that watched as he pursued the stones. With each, the vision solidified, filled out. Became more present and real.

“The auracite is unlike any of the other stones. It is tied into the will of man and mortal—powered by it, stabilized with it, Ffamran,” Cidolphus extolls. The nearness of this latest stone leaves Balthier’s thoughts exhausted, his body feeling scraped-out to emptiness and weariness. “So—it will heed the will most readily.” 

“And what—” the question is difficult to get together. Balthier can still fly the Strahl, some fevered brightness inside him keeps him going, even if he feels a bit like a puppet at all his tasks. There’s no time to rest. He remembers only after a few minutes navigating the Strahl that he had been asking a question. “What are we  _ willing _ to do with it, exactly?”

“Why, with the power of the wills of everything mortal we may stop the very gods,” Cid says. He sits in the copilot’s seat, where Fran belongs, yet does not sit.

Balthier, vaguely, remembers that this was—something akin to his fathers’ old mission. “That worked out badly for  _ you _ , old man. And  _ you _ had that blasted god on your side.”

**_Not alone this mission undertaken._ **

That damnable heavy and  _ buzzing _ feeling in his head again. Balthier feels it sink deep in his thoughts and lodge there heavily. He can’t think around it.

**_Power beyond prior known to mortals_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Bends now to this purpose mark’d in god’s blood_ **

“They can keep their blood,” Balthier grunts. “I only want to be at last free of this yoke.”

“But you’re doing so  _ well _ my boy,” Cid surges back into his awareness, smiling at him from Fran’s seat. _ Fran—haven’t I seen her recently? _ “For the first time, living up to the truth of your potential.”

Balthier  _ wants _ this damnit, and he wishes the thing did not have such a weakness to prod into. He can see the reaches of the world passing below, and he wishes to just be done—but he must return each stone to where they can be studied before retrieving the next. With more than one in proximity and it had rapidly become apparent what the ‘Anima’ his father’s notes referred to. LIfe-force. Too long in the presence of more than one stone was like to kill him as dead as the beasts he encountered in each cave containing an Auracite cryst.

“You’re making me proud, my boy.”

It flushes Balthier both hot and cold.  _ It’s not real. The old man is dead and you killed him. Pulled the trigger yourself. _

But it could be. His father  _ would _ be proud of him for this dogged and depraved mission seen through to the end. He tries to shake off the ghost and reach for the apparition beneath. 

“Why do you care if humes have the power to stop Gods? You  _ are _ a god, aren’t you? One of the Occuria,” Balthier is sure of this. Below, Giruvegan spreads out before him; that vacuous hole in the ground like a maw, ready to devour whatever it can. It reminds him of those wooly gators they’d fought so often—all those years ago he realizes—with their wide-mouthed warning gape as a threat.  _ This is how big my mouth is, and I will consume anything of a diameter to fit. _

**_Without Venat the cursed one downcast_ ** **_  
_ ** **_The gods unbalanced find numbers miscast_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Uneven unsettled are occuria divine_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Madness feared in the match’d one left behind_ **

“Do you say anything without the damned poetry?” Silence only is his answer. Balthier puzzles it out, after a time, measuring their descent. “You’re saying that when Venat died, it drove you insane—or the other Occuria thought so, anyway?” 

He gives a bitter laugh at the buzzing and angry sensation that answers in the very air around him, as if powerful lightning magicks are about to strike him where he stands. It does not terrify him the way it might. “You need me. You can’t smite me.” 

There is no feeling of confirmation, so Balthier lets it lie. Two halves balancing each other so when an odd number was cut from an even, it creates two problems. And delivered to this Occuria by the actions of he and his friends—a wheel around and around pulled this way and that, fate—the means of the mad god’s revenge.  _ At least now I know. _

He sets the Strahl to anchor just outside Giruvegan and leaves her to hide herself with her old tricks. He lifts the stone from where he’d let it lie in the seat behind him and while the one to which he is attuned seems tame to him now—this nearly seems to bite at Balthier’s fingers, leaving them stinging and prickling with its ravenous touch. He finds his steps are quicker into the depths when holding it. 

“Only one stone left to claim,” his father’s ghost tells him, walking alongside in his usual sudden appearance. “Hurry, hurry now. You must beat your enemies to them.”

“My friends, you mean. If you think I’m not going to lay down and sleep before I go anywhere, you’re sorely mistaken,” Balthier snaps. He hates the concession to necessities—when he sleeps, the thing seems to work its way deeper into his mind—yet he is on the verge of collapse, even with the superhuman drive and compulsion fueling him. The tactic switches from the carrot to the stick.

**_No time now for rest’s embrace nor comfort_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Hurry ahead to task’s completion hence_ **

“Fran nearly had me that last time, you know,” Balthier reminds, yawning spitefully. “I  _ need _ rest, real and proper sleep, or the next of these Auracite stones I touch is like to be the end of me. That may be your purpose, but not mine.”

**_To you my power I have lent in trust_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Born up you are till end of mission reach’d._ **

He places the stone amongst the others, this ominously glowing array in the curiously equipped lab he's' built at the depths of the city, at the center of this hungry pit. Then, despite the protests of his own thought and the gods, he staggers as far from the crystals as he can manage before resolve runs out and he lays himself down to sleep in the dirty hallway like a dog outside his master’s bedroom.

Finally, deeply, Balthier sleeps.

And forgets.

* * *

8.2

They catch him at the last stone and the sight of them together—Basch wearing his concern openly without the armor, and Fran looking serious and focused—is nearly enough for him to fight his way to the surface and return to control, but now that the moment to fight has come, Balthier finds he is too worn thin and exhausted. All his efforts come to gasping end before he can reach even one hand free of the Occurian’s control There doesn’t feel like enough of him left to push through.

“Balthier,” Fran calls. He already has the last of the stones in his hands, and it feels like his skin is cracking and bleeding, chapped and chaffed by the very contact with the smooth surface.

He looks at her, and feels the struggle of consciousnesses in his mind—Gerun pulling at his strings and finding them looser than usual, so that Balthier can meet her gaze and hope she understands his regrets on everything that’s come to pass. Then the God has pulled tight the reigns of his control and it nearly blacks his vision entirely. He’s already heading for the exit, though they stand between him and it. The conviction enters him to get past—to see this thing he’s started through to the bitter end. He knows then that the emotion belongs to Gerun; he is thin and stretched and barely cognizant.

“Balthier,” Basch entreats this time, wearing his own scarred skin again and not the heavy Judge’s plate, and that’s a feeling that reaches Balthier at the drowning depths, too—the memories of how first they’d met, and then how they’d journeyed together for a time with Basch in little more than the rags he’d pulled together or beg-borrowed from the resistance.

“I will see you again,” Balthier is surprised by his own voice, by the heavy and echoing quality of it. “At the end and beginning of things!”

When he calls forth the Esper it leaves him faint even born up by God’s strength; it is that last thread that bears him up and refuses to let his steps falter afterward, as the creature holds his friends at bay long enough for him to slip by in the carnage. 

Outside, he nearly drops when a stone turns underfoot, but somehow he makes it to the Strahl with the voices of his friends begging him to stop. And on he goes—to the end of things.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

**9.1 Basch**

“We can’t lose him!” Basch calls back, as the Esper slashes and snarls at him. Fran, serious faced, hits it with an arrow and nods.

“I’ll hold it off,” Basch catches the venomous spine on its tail with his sword, pushing it away from him only to find it doubling back on itself to bring its teeth into play. “You go after him—follow the Strahl!”

For a moment she obviously considers, and then shakes her head. “I have a better idea!”

She closes her eyes in a moment of focus, and makes a forceful gesture before calling forth an Esper of her own—the one Basch recognizes from the Tomb of Raithwall.  _ Belias? _

He doesn’t have any time for surprise as the two fierce titans colash together, smashing in a wave of power. Together he can see the differences. The Auracite-born Esper looks more feral and primordial, something half-formed battling against the earliest vestiges of society as they now know it, and he wonders if these clashes were common in the earliest days of Humes, as they fought to carve a way in the youthful and wild world.

“Basch!” Fran calls. “Come now or we will lose him!”

Basch shakes off the awe of watching the clashing forces—Belias now trying to pin down the snakelike being as it constricts him tightly in return, mouth gaping impossibly wide to reveal razor-sharp and catlike fangs. He turns to run with Fran, hearing the snarling, raging espers continue to fight it out behind them.

They make the cave entrance in time to see the Strahl shimmer into visibility, banking into a turn to flee.

“Hurry!” Fran calls again, as if urging her own steps faster. She stumbles over a loose stone and Basch catches her up onto her feet. They board their borrowed airship to give chase. She is an adept pilot but her skills and the unfamiliar ship are hard pressed to keep up with the Strahl, especially when Balthier seems to become aware of the pursuit. He takes her higher, into the clouds, weaving and dodging away from them as if under fire.

“What’s he doing?” Basch drops himself into the copilot’s seat, still sweating from the fight.

“Trying to lose us—and throw off our targeting,” Fran reveals.

“Are we targeting him?”

Fran looks at Basch for just an instant, then casts her eyes back toward the Strahl—as much her wings as Balthier’s. “If it becomes necessary. But let us pray it does not.”

Basch is not familiar with airship armaments or weaponry, so he hopes it isn’t necessary for more than one reason. “Can I help?”

“Keep your eyes on him,” she says. “That was the last stone—if we lose him…”

She doesn’t need to say it. Whatever he’s been trying to do will be done. Neither of them expect that—after seeing how gaunt and unwell he looks now—he will survive it. He has been paying in Anima this entire time, and the cost has been great.

He follows the Strahl with his eyes as she weaves and dodges through the clouds and tries to stay hidden. Occasionally he feels Fran hesitate beside him, and he quickly points her toward the new direction. She responds on trust even before her own eyes catch sight of the ship.

“Where are we going?” Basch wonders, under his breath. “Can this ship follow him into Jagd?”

“Follow, yes—Catch up to, no.” Fran leans lower over the ship's controls as if urging the vessel faster. “The engine’s equipped with shielded skystone but not designed for it. It will be much strained by Jagd.”

Basch points where he sees only a flash of the Strahl’s glossair rings through the thick sky and she follows, plunging into the cloud bank after. The world becomes dark grey and close around the windows. “We’ll have to stay with him, then.”

After a minute, he reaches out to put his hand on her shoulder, a touch between comrades. There is a lot on his mind—all these events have come up together to something no one could anticipate, ubt he can’t help but feel the guilt and weight on his shoulders. “Fran I… Owe you an apology. You left him in my care and I didn't realize… I let him walk out without even waking. Without any question.”

He takes a deep breath, feeling the speed of their pursuit and the way the clouds sluice and slither around them. “I should have seen it.”

Fran doesn’t look at him, her eyes forward, but she does incline her head slightly toward him. “How could you guess that his behavior this time was different from any other morning?”

Balthier  _ was _ always gone in the middle of the night, and Basch has always attributed it to something next to do—that he was always busy. Even when they were at camp together, he’d made it out well before dawn. Basch had initially thought it to be discretion, but by the end of their journeys he’s sure everyone had known what the nature of their relationship was. Fran, at least. Vossler, too, had said as much.

“He was—well,” Basch feels some color come up his cheeks as guilt suffuses him. “Somewhat different from the norm—and then he—he stayed to sleep. I felt it a relief, a treat.” 

Fran considers this, then shakes her head. “He gave up the stone of free will. I would have thought his behavior connected to the fallout of that.”

She wrinkles her nose. “His habits make him hard to measure in the best of circumstances. It’s like they say about birds—they may fly away as far as they can to hide how injured they are, no matter if it tears them apart in the doing.”

It makes sense when she puts it that way—and the way Balthier tends to insist on things between himself and others… It doesn't encourage Basch to openly express concern. He’d probably wind up with the worst end of the conversation. “Do you think he’ll ever learn to trust us? Fully?”

Fran considers it, then says surprisingly, “He does already, in his own way. If you mean on the terms that Hume society dictates as the norm, I cannot answer to that.”

“Is that Giruvegan ahead?” Basch asks as the clouds begin to thin around them, peeling back from the starry sky to show the velvet black of the night overhead.

“I had hoped our course would only carry us past this place…” Fran says.

Basch hasn’t forgotten their earlier conversation, but his focus locks on the forgotten city. He’s sure that Balthier would have preferred never to see the place again. Basch too wishes he didn’t have to lay eyes on it, but here they are, and he can see the Strahl starting to slow over the ruins of the once-holy city. 

“Too much to hope for,” Basch says, as Fran looks for a place to lay anchor.

“Those halls are some I never wished to walk again.”

“Fran,” he says, and she looks at him. “We’ll have to stop him, no matter what it—”

She looks Basch in the eye. “This has been killing him the whole time. I will be kinder by our hands if it must be this way—before they steal his will completely. Still I think us capable of protecting him.” 

“I agree.” Basch hoists his sword and picks up his bag, hoping they can be ready for this.

Fran leaves the ship’s engines running, as if anticipating the need for a quick departure. It is unlikely that over such an unknown and haunted place the ship will be stolen from ‘neath their noses. 

The city is quiet at night, and it seems to shimmer and hum with the memory of what magic and history the place has condensed into the dense Mist of the place. Fran shudders when it touches her.

“The city resents all these ants on its skin,” she says, distantly as if in a trance. “It wishes to be left alone to eternal slumber.”

At the gate, where once it had only opened for Belias, the way stands wide, a lolling tongue beckoning into the great maddening maw beyond. There is no sign of Balthier, not even the Strahl hidden above somewhere guides their steps. He  _ is _ here, though, and the roiling unstill Mist pulls heavy at Basch.

Suddenly, the purpose is made clear. The Great Crystal is here, birthing Mist ever into the world, the door through which the domain of the Occuria might be reached.  _ By this way and no other, _ He remembers how the waystone read. This power amassed so near to them, and he can guess the purpose.

“Down,” Basch says with his heart sinking—it should not be just the two of them for this. Neither had guessed the severity of what is at stake.

“I am glad Ashe lent me the Esper,” Fran says. “The great crystal is not an obstacle I would make light of.” 

So go they again into the wicked and twisted ways of Giruvegan, grim and silent with determination and this time, alone. 

* * *

9.2

“Balthier!” she catches sight of him first, on a lower platform, and the ringing of her voice in the ghostly and dangerous silence of the place pulls his attention back to her at last. 

All of the creatures they have passed—even in this most ancient of places, are silent or dead, laying still even as Basch and Fran pass. The Mist passing through the area all seems to be drawn down toward the crystal. Even the miasma curling continually forth from the Great Crystal itself doesn't seem to make it any further than the platform at the base of it. 

He is standing—barely, it looks like—at the center of a group of pedestals, each holding one of a dozen Auracite stones, all pulsing softly, drawing everything they can drink into themselves.

“Balthier, stop this!” Fran calls again, as Basch trots ahead, waiting for the path to appear ahead of them.

“Come and make me.” His voice is very soft, strangely strangled.

Fran considers only for an instant before she leaps over the side of the platform she stands on and drops on blind faith down to the platform with Balthier. Basch scrambles after, chasing her and regretting it when he thuds to the stone more heavily than she. 

As they step into the center of the glowing crysts, they each pulse. Balthier waves them back, head loling tiredly to one side.

“It must be done. Surely you see that,” he mutters, but the voice is strange. Suddenly, the spectre of something larger over his shoulders, looming and warning them off with clear intent. 

_ “What _ must be done?” Fran asks, and she steps forward despite the obvious danger, addressing the shadow of the Occuria directly. “Why are you interfering again?”

Balthier shifts further, closer in toward the Great Crystal, and the Auracite pulses to life around them, starting to lift off of their pedestals.

“What was six is now five and unbalanced these six years. For immortal beings, the onset of their madness is quick, with the true loss of Venat,” Balthier says, his voice a low purr of thoughtful quiet; rich and heavy with his considerations. He turns away to the embrace of the Auracite, and the glow alights on him in eerie green-gold.

“What are you saying, Balthier?” Basch tries to call him back to the now; to draw him up again from the past. “How come you to this knowledge?”

“Ah, the blood, Basch,” Balthier answers. He turns his head over his shoulder in a chilling and familiar gesture; like his father had—the cock of the dog’s ear to the faint, inaudible whistle. “It is ever in the blood. I pursue that same burning curiosity—it’s his ghost in me, you know.”

Basch does not like to hear it, but Balthier sets the mask aside as easily as he does any of his others, dropping the act again down beneath the surface of his skies, clouds subsuming to a warm front. 

“Balthier, you’re treading too close to paths closed in the past,” Basch says, trying to soothe. “Let the Occuria see to their own eternity, we have no such concern. Just these handful of years remaining.”

“Ah yes, the Lady Ashe would be proud,” Balthier begins.

It’s Fran that interrupts, one ear cocked toward him in uncertain displeasure at the levity of Balthier’s tone. “The Queen Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca.”

“The queen, then,” Balthier says, in a tone that’s full of all the times he’d seen her bathe in a lake, or hand-wash her own clothes, scrubbing blood and sand out of her armor. “She must see to her dynasty. Having wrested control, with the help of Archades, from the hands of the immortals and shattered all that they might offer to bring the fate of Humes back in line, I hope she builds strong.”

Fran’s dark eyes press against Basch’s gaze, traded sidelong between themselves.

Balthier tuts, and the stones draw in closer to him, beginning to spin and change in shape. “That’s all, my friends, no need to worry. I have questions, and what self respecting sky pirate was not ever willing to dig for answers?”

“These pathways are twisted,” Fran intones, shifting her weight. “To walk them leaves one warped. This you know, Balthier.”

“This I know,” he agrees, because he knows better to argue with someone who knows him so well. “But it’s madness to pursue and madness to refrain.”

Basch dislikes this reasoning; it is not the sort of narrow situation Balthier allowed for himself. However, he has found himself trapped in such straights before, as Basch well knows. There is something about the dark around his eyes, the edge of mania in him that Basch dislikes. He resolves to put a stop to this course, even as the Auracite forms itself into a shell; a suit of armor that floats over Balthier’s skin at a distance of inches and yet protects as surely as Basch’s Judge’s plate would. He did not bring it.

The stones spin and drift, but ever provide him a wall between them as his feet lift just ever so slightly off the floor. Balthier floats at the center of it all, manic and ferocious and untouched. “So now I will feed the Gods their own creation—carry the Auracite with me to their plane—but to open the door—it will take all the Anima this world can muster!”

Basch steps forward then, sure it’s coming to a fight—but power radiates outward from Balthier’s sagging form, tightening the rotation of Auracite around his body in response to Basch’s nearness. Basch glances back to Fran and sees her eyes, too, narrowing in determination.

He draws his sword as she draws her bow, and they square up against this terrifying apparition. He moves as a man possessed and Basch can’t find a weak point in the thick armor of Auracite though he strikes twice, quickly, to test it. Worse, it seems to arc and crackle when he strikes the stones, drawing his very anima out of his body and weakening him. He finds he’s pulling his blows in case any make it through, and it’s taxing him more than trying to cut through the defenses in earnest. For every blow he lands, he has to draw back two steps as parts of the armor detach and slam back toward him.

“Magick will not heed me here, there is too much conflicted Mist!” Fran warns. “We are too close to the crystal.”

The pressure of all the forces at work—as Basch holds his ground under the hammering attack of the Godspun Armor surrounding Balthier—serves to make the air feel heavy and hard to breathe. Basch’s ears are ringing, and he can only hear silence and the pounding of his blood in his own veins, feel the way the impacts of his sword are getting heavier as exhaustion steals the required finesse to be careful.

“Is that all you have?” Balthier’s voice with its inhuman echo penetrates the ringing quiet of Basch’s attention. “You’ll have to try harder!”

Basch steels himself, smashing aside a piece of Auracite that rockets toward him like a fist—it’s a strange method of combat, to use itself as powersource, armor, and bludgeoning weapon all in one—Basch slams it wide, smashing the stone into the ground. For an instant, there’s a gap in the armor surrounding Balthier, but a second blow comes whirling in to force Basch back before he can lunge for it. One of Fran’s arrows smashes into it from the side, shattering against the cryst and knocking it wide. 

With the space made, Basch gathers his defenses, glancing at Fran. He hopes she’s read what he has from the situation. He remembers fighting Cidolphus—how can he not draw the comparison, with the Idollic figure occasionally shimmering behind Balthier as he makes a sudden gesture to send one of the pieces of Auracite lancing outward for an attack? It leaves no doubt who has control of the puppet’s strings. In that fight, when Cidolphus—the host—had been sufficiently damaged, the parasite Venat had shaken free and left him to die. Perhaps, if they are very lucky, there is an opportunity in that.

But how to know if whatever Occuria this is will fight to the end with it’s goal so close—as Venat had once joined with Vayne?  _ Will it cut losses and flee, or will it stand here until we’ve had a decided victory, and tear Balthier apart in the process? _

He’s not sure he has much choice—if he and Fran have the power—but to see it through to whatever the conclusion is.  _ If it fires up these stones with intent to destroy the Great Crystal and rend open the veil to tear his way back into the Occuria’s plane—it will draw all the Anima out of the world.  _

Basch has heard enough of caves of dead monsters, dropped lifeless in their dens and havens, that he has some idea what it would look like. His eyes meet Fran’s and she nocks another arrow to string. He nods. Basch gathers his strength and drives in on the defensive, batting the Auracite away relentlessly, breaking the armor apart plate by plate and smashing through each cryst that rises up to block his way, pushing each wild with strikes that ache along the entire length of his arms and into his shoulders—trying to cut a temporary rift in the cohesion of the floating armor surrounding Balthier.

He feels more than he hears, in the strange, airless pressure immediately surrounding Balthier, the rush of cut-air as Fran’s first arrow whizzes past his ear and one last section of the cryst-armor shifts to absorb the blow—fatally aimed for his neck. A second, less deadly arrow anticipates the place the plate had been and strikes through the new gap.

It hurts nearly as if it had pierced Basch’s own side to see it sink surely just beneath Balthier’s ribs on one side and pull an airless, agonized wheeze from his friend—it is a mortal shot on a hale man, and Balthier is barely upright to begin with. The Godspun Armor flies outward in a dozen directions, battering at Basch and Fran both to drive them back as though it might regather around Balthier and  _ entomb _ him. It’s all Basch can do to cleave two pieces wide of their path and spare Fran.

Then, having flown to the limit of their reach—Basch’s eyes dare to go back to Balthier, falling as if in slow motion like a puppet laid slowly down and folding as gracelessly at the knees, gripping with one thin hand at the arrow piercing his side to hold the hurt in pure instinct—the Auracite begins to drop.

His heart sinks, and Basch tries to find the resolve in himself for this; when Balthier’s exhausted and sunken eyes turn toward him in an entreaty he can’t read. On the instant he’s sure it will continue, the first stone shatters far below them in the pit surrounding the crystal. It explodes with a force that rocks the city; the shrieking and writhing form of the snake-cat Esper spiraling skyward as it casts off the severed chains of its captivity in exchange for freedom. 

“I told you,” Balthier’s voice reaches Basch, seeming loud after the airless pressure has left the platform. The next stone drops—Basch’s heart stops for an instant, but this one does not explode, merely shatters with most of its energy spent in the struggle, and goes dark. When he dares look back at Balthier with all the chaos around them, he sees the man’s attention is affixed on some point over his head, though he’s barely holding himself up on one hand (the other clasped around the arrow) and his knees. 

“Madness can’t unmake the world,” Balthier continues. Another stone shatters. Basch’s sword feels suddenly very heavy in his hands, nearly impossible to hold up anymore. He lets it fall, too, and goes to Balthier’s side, gets his arms around the man so he needn’t hold himself up any longer. Balthier is still speaking. “It can only make misery in it. Won’t you give it up? Who  _ cares _ where the reins lie?”

Balthier closes his eyes when Basch lays him back into his arms, and leans into the touch. He expects the steady weight he's grown used to in the moments where they touch and move each other, but instead there is a horrifying lightness. He can feel the jut of bone and tight-pulled skin beneath the worn clothes—these few months gone only and yet the changes seem vast. Even to Basch’s exhausted body, Balthier’s weight seems light to bear.

He turns Balthier to lay back, intent on hoisting him with as little pain as possible. When Balthier opens his eyes again, they’re slow to focus on Basch.

“Balthier,” Basch says with everything the name and the man mean to him, because he deserves to hear some kindness, if he hears nothing else. 

“Captain,” Balthier answers in barely a whisper, and the corner of his mouth makes a valiant effort at his dashing smirk. “Now  _ you _ rescue me from the depths.”

Fran is at their side, then, too—her bow tucked away on her back. She reaches out gently to take Balthier’s hand, looking into his eyes as if to measure his sanity first—but the Auracite armor has all shattered,and his thin palm is free of the mark left there by the esper—the pact seemingly broken. 

“I would that I didn’t have to,” Basch says, picking Balthier up off the ground like a gangly, overlong child in his arms. 

“Fran,” Balthier says, and the breadth of things he expresses with just her name is vast. He appends only what he needs to in words. “Well shot.”

“It’s killing you,” she points out. She looks up at Basch with her fierce determination, then. “We need him where Magick can heal—can you carry him to the waystone?”

“I could carry him all the way back to Archades.”

She points away from the Great Crystal and back toward the platform at the lowest level of the city. Basch nods, and turns his steps. He is aware when Fran slips away from his side to pick up his dropped sword off the ground—a sword he’d brought out of retirement for this, rather than bring the heavy and judgemental pair his brother left him. 

Balthier falls unconscious even before they make the waystone, and Basch hurries his weary steps, not sure a prayer to the Gods is appropriate here—instead he just  _ wishes  _ as hard as he might, that that the slow soft pattern of Balthier’s breath will hold. 

Back at the summit of Giruvegan, Balthier is still alive and Fran instructs Basch to set him down, laying his body out for her ministrations. Had he his way, it would be in a soft bed, surrounded with clean pillows—but the eerie abandoned stone walkway of the place, hard and unforgiving, will have to do.  _ Not even a blanket to lay him on. _

“Hold him steady,” Fran says, placing her clawed hands on the arrow. “He is deep, now, but this will hurt beyond the making of the wound.”

She pulls steadily and twists the arrow to work the barbed tip free, and Basch feels Balthier go tense—a groan torn from his lips as the cruel thing at last drags free of his abused flesh with a pulse—then a bright-quick flow of blood. Basch tries to cover it with his hands to staunch the flow quickly. Somehow—with Balthier this gaunt and pale—he hadn’t expected any blood at all.

Fran pushes his hands away and focuses her casting of healing magicks into the wound, siphoning all of her power. “His body is very weak.”

“You’re the strongest healer I know,” Basch says, low and encouraging. “It will be enough.”

“It will be enough for  _ this _ wound,” she corrects, voice showing a slight strain as she pushes her limits. A fine sweat springs up on her brow as she pours spell after spell into it. The bleeding slows and eventually ceases, but Balthier still looks pale and bloodless as the wound finally begins to close from the inside out. It takes longer than Basch would expect—Fran gasping for breath and finally sitting back with all her magicks exhausted with the wound only scabbed over. She shakes her head. 

“His body has nothing left to contribute to healing itself,” she reveals. “I have no more magicks, and that is all I can do for him.”

“It isn’t,” Basch says, softly. She can do a great many more things. “Let us carry him back with us—to Archades, I am sorry, but there we may give him a place to rest and heal, and still may he answer our questions.” 

“It may be some time before he is fit to.”

Basch hoists Balthier in his arms, once again surprised by the ease of carrying his diminished weight. He knows that leaving the Strahl here may prove unforgivable, but even less does he like the idea of spending the time to search for where it is hidden. 

Fran left the engines on their borrowed ship on and this time they are not giving chase but they fly as if they are.

* * *

9.3

He carries Balthier toward his estate, stepping quickly with Fran at his side. They take the Royal Way and the Judge Patrols take note—some stopping to salute Basch, though he is out of uniform—and as he nears the inner corridors of Tsenoble, one actually calls for him to stop. He is tired and wants nothing more than to put Balthier safely to bed—as if all there is left is to set the man to healing, the faster to return Basch’s entire world to normal. 

“Judge Magister, we need a moment,” the patrol-captain requests.

Basch feels Fran go tense behind him, as if ready to fight for Balthier’s safety—he too feels as if he might at any second lash out, should anything prove an obstacle to his goal. “You have a moment, but that only.”

“His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor has issued a request that you seek immediate audience with him on your return.”

Basch shifts the obvious, blanket-wrapped burden of Balthier in his arms. “I have aught to deal with first. I will come as soon as I may.”

“It’s orders from the  _ Emperor _ —!” one of the Judges from the back explodes, as if mortally offended by Basch’s causal request to finish what he is about rather than drop his injured comrade on the floor like sacked potatoes and scamper off, chastised, to Larsa’s heel.

The patrol captain turns on his man. “Mind your tone, whelp! This man is a Judge Magister.”

Basch is already tired of this play-act in manners and the ‘proper’ order of things, he is getting no closer to his home or meeting the Emperor by standing here in the hall. Instead of offering explanations, he instead begins to issue orders.

“You there,” he addresses the Judge who had spoken up with all his years of military authority in his tone. “You may go and deliver news of my return to the Emperor immediately. I will come to his audience as soon as I am able or I may be found at home on my estate at his leisure.” 

The sight of a man in full plate quailing in obvious concern about an order Basch has given does not give him much pleasure—but the behavior needs correction and a demonstration that Basch—as Judge Gabranth—has no illogical fear of the Emperor. It might encourage the men to feel the same.  _ Respect is an easy lesson to sour with fear.  _

“Y-Yes sir,” the judge answers, worriedly.

“You’re dismissed,” Basch tells him, and then turns back to the watch-commander as the ill-fated judge hurries off in the direction of the palace-ways. “Is that all, Judge-Captain?”

“Yes-sir, Judge Magister,” the watch-captain answers, snapping to attention. An instant later the rest of the patrol follows suit. “Sorry to keep you and sorry for the new recruit. His head’s all full of valor-stories.”

“Many of them are, when green. Have a peaceful watch, Judge-Captain,” Basch turns and goes on his way, tired again as soon as he steps past. Fran comes just behind him.

“Is everything here such an ordeal?” she asks, her steps striking a little harder on the underground roadway with her irritation.

“Everything they can manage to make complicated,” Basch finds the hidden entryway and gestures for Fran to let them in. “They do.”

She pulls the lever hidden in the stonework to admit them into the library and Basch steps through and back into his own home with relief. Inside he finds Millie frozen still and staring with unexpected concern at the wall that swings open to admit people from the Royal Way. She has a feather duster in hand, and looks ready to shout for help.

“It’s just me, Millicent,” Basch assures her, as she seems to register at last who he is. She next lowers her gaze to take in Balthier in his arms, recognizing him, too, despite the vast change in his health. 

“Good heavens above, ser, you gave me a fright—and he  _ looks _ a fright! I’ll go and get a bed ready right away! And some hot water…” she bustles out, clutching her feather duster to her like a weapon. Just another day on the estate.

He glances at Fran in a ‘see?’ gesture, and starts to carry Balthier upstairs. Balthier’s breathing is steady, and his pulse is strong but faster than Basch likes, and he’s pale and quiet. He’s obviously exhausted, and Basch can only pray the rest is easy—and restorative.

“I’ll have to go and give word to Lord Larsa,” Basch says, and he settles Balthier into his own bed. “But I’ll leave the staff in your charge.”

Balthier, even already wrapped in a blanket, looks so small on Basch’s bed—a far cry from how he usually spreads himself to command it when he wants a certain kind of attention.

“You too need rest,” Fran points out, and Basch nods, rubbing his eyes—his hands are still sticky and splashed in places with dried blood. He’s not sure how many days he’s been gone, in fact. Less than a fortnight, but time spent in Giruvegan feels soft and indefinable in his mind.  _ Less than a seven-span of days? _

“I know,” Basch says. “It will come soon, but it will last longer if I make my report first.”

He does stop to wash and shave, and he's about to start donning the padding preparatory to pull his full suit of armor back on, returning fully and near-guiltily to the guise of Gabranth he’d cast aside completely for this task.

Downstairs a yelp and then rushing steps on the stairs. He leans out of the wash room to see Millie standing in the doorway of his chambers, wringing her hands in her apron. Her eyes hone in on him. 

“Ser, it’s the Emperor and his guards just come in through the back way, and he’s asking for you right away!”

“Well I did say he could see me here,” Basch sighs, unsure of what Larsa intends by such a gesture.  _ Likely, he didn’t expect Millicent’s excitability, and it saves me a trip.  _ He nods to Millie, and tries to reassure her. “Go to the kitchens and have them make the best tea we have on hand—use the good service but nothing more elaborate than that. If the visit runs longer than three-quarters of an hour, come and refresh the tea pot.” 

“Yes ser!” Millie draws to attention.

“Is Dyce in?” he quickly abandons the thoughts of getting into his armor and pulls on his uniform jacket instead, hoping Larsa is in a patient mood. 

“He’s been sent for, Ser,” Millie reveals, as Basch does his best to assemble himself for proper presentation.

“When he arrives, send him here,” Basch says, glancing at Fran with a nod. He’s already on his way out—the uniform will have to do, anything else is going to keep Larsa waiting. “Tell him he’s to get Lady Fran anything she asks for.”

Millie glances back to see Balthier tucked into Basch’s bed, though surely she’s made one in the guest quarters, and Fran settled on the edge of the bed, gently smoothing his hair back from his face. After just a second, Millicent nods seriously. “You’ve got it, ser. And if Mister Dyce is takin’ his time too much, I’ll handle it all and do you proud.” 

At the doors of the library, Basch stops and puts his hand gently on her shoulder. “You already do, Millie, thank you.”

For a brief instant she seems to brim up with pride, and then she rushes off to handle things, leaving him to slip into the library and meet with Larsa. The Emperor is seated in one of the circle of chairs arranged to one side of the space for reading, and his two guards stand at peaceful ease by the secret entrance.

“Magister Gabranth,” Larsa smiles to see him, looking Basch over—he takes in everything nearly at once, and his expression turns apologetic. “I’m sorry, I’ve come to trouble you so quickly after your return. I just thought it best to hear from you—in brief—about the mission I sent you so urgently upon.”

Larsa stresses the words strangely, and Basch picks up his meaning after just a faint hesitation, suspecting the Emperor had to do some quick thinking to explain his absence to Zargabaath and the other judges. 

“Yes, your Imperial Majesty,” Basch acknowledges. “Our mission was successful for the time being, and we seem to have stopped the effect of the growing Jagd.”

Basch stays vague, aware even of his own servants. 

“Did you recover our friend?” Larsa waves off Basch’s news that he has kept great harm from the world yet again. “Is he safe?”

“He’s here. Badly injured and greatly weakened, but alive. He is—not yet in a state to answer questions, but I’m sure he’ll be willing to, when he feels stronger.” 

“And—you said you put an end to the issue with Jagd? “

“For now at least. The stones have been destroyed and we’ve at least driven off the source of the plot, for now.”

Larsa clearly has many questions, but he nods, accepting what Basch has said for now. “I only came to be sure that any immediate action I might take was seen to. And—”

He hesitates, then gets up. His two guardsmen come to attention. 

“Might I see him? Just to convey my respects and well-wishes? I won’t bother him overlong with my companionship.” Larsa speaks in the softer voice of his youth. “Nor will I ask any taxing questions.” 

Basch hesitates on the point of his own protectiveness, even against his  _ Emperor _ and friend. But he nods, and gestures Larsa to follow just as Millie appears in the doorway with tea. She bows low over the tray, setting it down on the tea table and leaving again, uncharacteristically silent. 

“Shall we bring a cup?” Basch asks—if this is to go on much longer, what he’ll want is  _ coffee, _ but this will do for now.

“If I may,” Larsa pours for himself politely, and gestures for the two guards to remain by the door—perhaps so he can speak a little more freely without having to mind where it might be repeated, or what ears are listening.

Basch leads him upstairs, his voice low in the short hall. “The Auracite was destroyed in the attempt—or when the—entity lost control of his plot. I believe we have driven away from Balthier, but we may see it again elsewhere.”

“It?” Larsa asks, after a long sip of tea.

“I’m not positive, but it resembled the same maddened God that worked first through Cidolphus and then Vayne, Imperial Highness.”

“Unfortunate that we must be haunted with such things. How is he, really?” 

“Still at the door of death,” Basch admits, and Larsa’s face goes serious and focused.

“Can I bring anything in my power to undo it? The palace physicians, our strongest magick—the man is a hero to us, much as he would try to deny it.”

“Fran’s magick has closed the injury, but his body is—the natural reserves magicks accelerate healing with are not there.” Basch warns, as he reaches out to admit Larsa into his chambers. “But—I have seen men come back from such a state, with time and care.”

“He’ll have as much of both as he requires,” Larsa affirms. Basch admits him to the room, and finds it dim inside, soft and carefully lit by just one gas lamp and the fireplace. Fran must have stoked it up to get it going. 

She is settled in the chair he occasionally occupies, sitting still and tired, likely near to sleep. She glances up as they enter, and inclines her head, as Larsa goes to her first, to clasp her hands in his. 

“Fran, are you well?” 

“I am tired. There is much to talk of—but I would wait until my worry is laid more to rest,” she squeezes his fingers. “I am sorry I took your Judge on the eve of your Ascension without time to explain, but I  _ am _ glad to see you at last in your rightful place.” 

“Think nothing of it,” Larsa says graciously. “I shall see to it that you have all you need to see to your companions recovery and to your own.” 

She nods and seeming to understand why he’s come, inclines her head toward the bed as if granting him permission to approach.

Balthier is tucked in under the blankets and dark-eyed, shrunken, dead to the world. Larsa takes it in quickly, crossing the space and putting his hand gently over one of Balthier’s and his hands now are big enough to cover the pirate’s. Balthier doesn’t so much as move in response to the contact. For a moment, Larsa is quiet then he’s done paying his silent well-wishes. He turns for the door, beckoning Basch along with him.

In the hallway, they reconvene in hushed tones. “He’ll want no one to see him in the condition who doesn’t have to.”

Basch hasn’t thought that far ahead yet, but he knows Larsa is right. Last time, Balthier let the others wonder in ignorance until he was recovered enough to steal the Strahl back. Looking at him like this, Basch understands. Balthier doesn’t want anyone else to see him when he isn’t ready to play the leading man at full capacity. 

“Can we keep his whereabouts secret? LIke he did after the fall of the  _ Bahamut _ ?” Basch entreats.

“I’ll do my best, though I feel it’s only fair to reassure our friends that he’s alive—and things are looking to the better, for the time being.”

“They should know,” Basch allows. “At least that he’s safe and with Fran.”

“That may not satisfy them but at least we may hold them at bay long enough for a head start on his recovery.”

Neither of them seems willing to allow for any other outcome and Basch is glad to find Larsa’s optimism inspires him. “Aye, that’s the best we can ask with friends as curious as ours.” 

Larsa reaches out and clasps Basch on the wrist. “If you or he needs anything, send for me and I’ll make it happen. I don't make light of what he’s been through and what you’ve stopped. All I have is a sketch, but the form is enough to know the breadth of things, my friend.” 

Basch nods and sees him back downstairs where Millie is offering the bemused pair of guards some tea of their own.

“We aren’t allowed while we’re on duty, ma’am,” one protests, as she pours.

“You’re not on duty, you’re guests while you’re on our estate, surely!”

Both helmeted heads swivel to Larsa and Basch as they enter, and they snap back to attention. Millie drops into a deep curtsy as Larsa enters, and backs away to one side of the room.

“Thank you for the excellent tea,” Larsa tells her, setting his nearly-full cup back on the tea tray. Millie bows lower “And for your kind offer to my guardsmen.”

“Are they really not allowed to have any tea, Imperial Majesty?” Millie asks daringly, though her eyes are still on the ground.

“As it happens, they aren’t,” Larsa says, kindly. “But in the future you may send some back for them.”

She nods once, almost fiercely. “Yes ser! Thank you, Imperial Majesty.”

Basch trades a brief, amused look with Larsa before the Emperor takes his leave and she breathes out a sigh when the door closes before she suddenly hoists both her hands quickly to her mouth, wide-eyed. Basch can’t imagine what’s upset her.

“D’you think I should have gotten some together to go with him just then, ser?” Milie asks in a small voice. 

Basch chuckles and shakes his head. “He’ll understand, Millicent, I’m sure. The Emperor is a great man and he is fair and compassionate.”

He yawns, helpless to stop it.

“As are you, Magister ser,” she says, swooping in to pick up the mostly untouched tea-tray. “Now off with you and get some rest! You’re less a fright than your friends but only by a little.”

* * *

9.4

Upstairs he finds Dyce just finishing up with his quarters—carrying out an armload of spoiled clothes and Basch’s sword for cleaning, Dyce takes one look at Basch and moves to the side, either too well bred or too vexed to say anything about the sky pirates in his room that he’s been charged with taking orders from. 

“It’s good to have you back, Judge Magister. I’ll have a report on the household when you’re ready for it, but for now I’ll see to it no one is disturbed for the next day-span of hours. Should I have dinner sent up?”

“No, Dyce, thank you,” Basch says. “Dinner for the household of course, but nothing for us that won’t keep ‘till we send for it.”

Dyce nods his understanding, and Basch lets himself into his room to lay down to sleep. The gas-light is extinguished now, and only the scarce glow from the fire reaches him. He discards the uniform jacket as he approaches the bed, but finds it already occupied—Balthier, of course is still in the helpless grips of his sleep, tucked carefully into the center of the bed.

Curled against the far side of him, Fran sleeps without her armor. The nakedness of her shoulder and head almost startles Basch though she has blankets for her modesty. Her soft ears are folded against Balthier’s shoulder and the pillow, eyes closed. Basch looks over the pair of them drawn in close to be sure both are well and breathing as easily as they might be. He feels a faint warmth and color under his skin. There is something intimate and private in the moment that he doesn’t feel like he should be seeing. Instinctively, he smoothes the covers down over them—not just to touch Balthier and be sure he’s solid and real.

When he is sure both are sleeping peacefully, breathing deep and rhythmic, he starts to step back from the edge of the bed. Balthier’s pale, thin hand comes up from where it’s laid on the coverlet and makes a clumsy grab for Basch, missing. He goes still, anyway.

Balthier’s eyes are very slightly open when Basch looks into them, glassy and guarded but cognizant.

“Stay,” Balthier says softly. “I need you.”

The aching in Basch’s chest swells fit to shatter him, and he immediately abandons his plans to sleep in the guest room. He fits himself on the other side of Balthier, so the man is cradled between himself and Fran, and wraps his arms carefully around his too-thin frame, holding Balthier close until his eyes close again, and Basch follows him finally off to sleep. 

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

**10.1 Balthier**

It’s nearly a week—sleeping, waking in a panic to be soothed by Fran or sometimes Bach (and often both) back to rest, or coaxed into eating bland, soft, tasteless food until his body starts to get used to the processes involved again—before Balthier starts to feel at all in command of his faculties again. It’s a miserable experience and though they keep the room dark for him with the aid of curtains and no one enters but Basch or Fran, it only takes one glance at himself in the mirror to see how damaged a man he is. _And I was concerned about a few scars after the Bahamut._

It awakens an animal instinct Balthier to go to ground—not just hide away in Basch’s quarters but perhaps even to huddle under his bed, hidden in blankets until he can emerge strong and hale again. Appealing though the idea is, he can also see that it’s pathetic.

So for two days he sleeps and drinks weak tea, eating little but cooked oats, and then he moves on to watered down juice and the ‘richness’ of such sweet and nourishing fare nearly undoes him. Fran's magick helps some with his pounding heart and quick breathing but the rest of the agony is his to endure and suffer through. 

Basch is soft and patient when Balthier feels like all right angles and snaps irritably at him to be left alone when Basch tries to encourage him to eat a little more. Though Basch doesn’t retreat, he goes quiet and withdrawn, and Balthier regrets _that_ enough that he starts minding his tone again. 

Fran doesn’t humor him in the least, she feeds him Viera remedies with no regard for his protests, vanishing once for several hours to the markets to come back with herbal concoctions that taste green and grassy. Despite how he dislikes it’s flavor, it does finally manage to settle his stomach. 

During the time he spends recovering, Balthier is never alone—but somehow Basch and Fran make it feel supportive rather than entrapping. After the sixth day, his sleep begins to feel restful again, and food no longer makes him run a fever or sets his heart pounding too fast. 

“You have worried us much,” Fran tells him, late on the sixth day wit his head pillowed on her lap—for all this, everything still seems to take far more energy to do than it _should_ and Balthier hates the entire experience, except Fran’s gently—ever so gently parting and soothing in his hair, leaving him relaxed. He has slept so much these last few days he’s not sure it’s in him anymore.

“I was fairly worried myself, you know,” Balthier admits. “I had faith in you, but a God is no mean thing to stop mid-scheme.”

“We have not seen the last of the Occuria,” Fran says, letting her eyes slide away. “I do not think you should involve yourself in their dealings in the future, or even in combating them.”

He’d like to protest, but her soft touch and the aching and worn state of his body convinces him the better of it. “I have no eagerness to do so, but at the least I might provide some insight for your efforts—if there are to be any.”

“We cannot avoid forever the fruition of his plan—it seems that even if he could take their numbers down to an odd-set, he will have perpetuated the madness in their ranks.”

“I shouldn’t wonder that all immortal things are due to descend eventually,” Balthier lets his eyes close. “If not in _our_ lifetime…”

“Viera lifespans are great in comparison to that of a humes,” Fran points out. “Do you think _me_ mad?”

Balthier cracks an eye open to look at her beautiful ageless and sorrowful face, idly, tracing the tall curve of her long, graceful ears with his eyes. “Well, if one must be judged by the company they keep, then I suppose I shouldn’t answer that. Not mad, but certainly eccentric, then.”

She snorts, a small indignant sound serves her in place of a laugh. _How long did it take me to learn her meanings? Yet, worth every second of effort was the pursuit._

“Your flattery has always been bad,” she says, fondly.

“No one’s perfect.”

“Balthier,” she says—she was the first to know him only by that name—though later she came to know all the dimensions of his past. His chosen name has always sounded the _most_ right in her voice.

“Yes?”

“Promise me you will stay until you are well.” 

He supposes he deserves that, after leaving her behind when last he ran. He hadn’t _intended_ to, but that he forgot her in his panic says much. He lets his eyes trail away from hers in humility. “I didn’t leave you by intent.”

She seems to relax some at that, but her quiet has the flavor of an expectant wait. He takes a deep breath and tries to explain himself. “I don’t make a habit of many things. So, I—”

It sounds silly, after all of this, to put his fear into words. But something about this facet of Balthier presented enough of a weakness that he was weak to the Occurian’s whisperings.

“No,” Fran prompts. “But usually it is your habit to take me with you.”

“I fell asleep in Basch’s bed.”

Fran blinks at him, drawing back a little, her ears angling slightly away with a twitch of displeasure. “You have been sleeping in the same bed these six days, with both he and I in attendance as often as possible.”

Leave it to Fran to always be sensible. He looks up at her, wryly. “I panicked. I woke up in his arms—in the personal, private quarters of a Judge Magister. It felt as if the past had risen up to swallow me whole. I was here in this damned city I’d sworn was behind me forever—I killed my _father_ to cut the ties—and I was comfortable. Content even, to be here.”

Fran considers the source of his misery in her slow, unhurried way. “You are afraid of… falling asleep with Basch?”

He groans—she is simplifying his problem so he can see it from another angle (an obtuse one.) “He’s not just Basch anymore, Fran. Even if he were—who but you do I get comfortable with? And _you_ I take with me— _usually_ , don’t give me that look—when I fly.”

“And Basch you do not.”

“Basch is a damnably dangerous habit for a sky pirate to cultivate. Surely someday we will do something that doesn’t agree with his new guise—if we haven’t already—and his honor is such that he or we will suffer for it.”

Fran looks at him for a long time. “I think this sounds like the plot of one of the cumbersome books on the table by the fireplace.”

“Forbidden love? I would hardly say my affection goes _that_ —”

Fran cuts him off. “Humes making their own suffering by coming up with so many rules. No one is ‘forbidding’ you but you yourself.”

He looks at her, wondering when she’d gotten to know Humes—and him in particular—so insufferably well. She looks back at him with just as much frank challenge.

“This is no longer the Archades you fought to leave behind,” Fran reminds. “And you are no longer the man who left it.”

Balthier sighs at how simple that sounds, as though he might use the purity of the logic to drive his emotion. “It’s easy enough to _say_ it that way, but to _feel_ it in such an understanding light is another matter.”

“Well do I know it,” Fran agrees. “I just thought perhaps if you heard such from a friend, you might find the next steps easier.”

“Well, I always return to _you_ my dear.”

Fran leans down over him, her palms pressed to his cheeks, and touches their noses together, gently. Viera do not kiss—they have sharp teeth and Fran finds no pleasure in the action. Balthier has grown accustomed to this instead, and finds the contact intimate and reassuring. 

“I know. But your heart needs many things to be complete, as a hume.”

She does not need to say it for him to append, ‘ _and an especially tricky and complex hume.’_ “You must find it tiresome to deal with such complications.”

Fran presses the pad of her finger over Balthier’s lips to still his words so he will listen. “Of Basch, I approve. Of any others I merely have no ill to say of your habits.”

“A ringing endorsement.”

“He has been by your side this whole time too, though if you sent him away he would go.”

“Like a whipped dog, and always returning to heel,” Balthier says, uncharitably. “Ever back to the respectable path of duty though it’s hurt him more than it’s raised him up. Even _here_ in this climber’s game, it’s so unkind to him as to make him wear the face of another.”

“You ask him for a mask, too.”

Balthier is stunned to silence, and looks his demand at Fran. She shakes her head at him once.

“It is not my place to give you every answer you need,” Fran says, reaching for tea and taking a long sip. “Think on it for yourself, I’m sure the meditation will fill your time—I have worried about occupying your mind.”

“You think I’ll lose it in my dotage, as my father did?” Balthier yawns, letting Basch fade from his mind for the time being. He won’t forget Fran’s challenge to him to think it over, but for now even the effort of conversing feels like too much.

“Hardly,” Fran says. “But when your mind is idle too long, it goes wicked.”

“Good thing between you and the Captain, my moral compass is well guided.”

Fran gently winds her fingers into his hair again—soft and soothing, and has no complaint when he settles down to sleep.

* * *

10.2

When next he wakes, Balthier is actually alone in the bed, but aware of another presence in the room. He looks up groggily to see Milly setting a tray with fresh tea, and clearing away the previous tray. He stays still, then wonders if that’s the wrong decision.

“Millicent,” He pitches his tone softly, trying not to surprise her—it doesn’t work. She startles, and then turns a glare on him, rattling the tea tray a little as she comes down off the balls of her feet, as if she’d been about to launch up toward the ceiling proper.

“Will you _stop_ that?” she says. _Admirably forward for a servant in Archades._

Blathier does his best to look apologetic. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was here…”

“I thought you were _sleepin’_ ,” she protests.

“Just because I’ve done that more than waking this week,” Balthier says. “That won’t always be the case.”

She glances at him cautiously, measuring his well-being and then just nods once to herself. “No, you look a far sight better than when they brought you in. I’ll reckon the Emperor will be back to talk to you soon.” 

This surprises Balthier—a lot of things about this last week surprised Balthier. “The Emperor.”

“He came to see you right after you got back,” she says, as if Balthier had only been off on vacation. It smacks of Archadian politeness. Then again, he also suspects Basch has hardly been going to his servants with the full details of where Balthier has been and why.

“Well, I suppose I was hardly proper company,” Balthier says. “And I haven’t been a very gracious guest either. I don’t even _mean_ to startle you, you know.”

“I know there’s not _much_ mean spirit in it,” Millie concedes. “But it’s got mischief enough that I don’t believe it’s _all_ accidental.”

_Smart woman._ Balthier nods. “I’ll make a bargain with you, then. I’ll try not to startle you when you’re carrying anything. But if you come into a room, best to have a look around for me, first.”

“Shall I expect you to be around more frequently then, ser?” Millie asks—and the question is innocent enough that he’ll put off worrying about it until later. 

“Ah,” he says, trapped between his own statement and his concerns about commitment. “For the time being anyway, my lady.”

Nothing wrong with a little flattery to keep the wheels turning in his favor. She doesn’t blush, instead, tutting at him. “I can tell by your accent you know I’m no titled lady and you can save your flattery for one of your paramours.”

He arches his brows at her as she lifts the dirty tea-tray onto her hip and makes her way to the door. She pauses to add, “Just mind your manners with his Imperial Majesty.”

Balthier keeps it to himself that she might mind her own manners and considers that a solid step in stabilizing peace with the woman. He gets up to take his tea, and the sight of his own hands and wrists doesn’t immediately distress him. He is still thin and drawn, but no longer puts himself in mind of a dusty grasping skeleton or zombie when he catches sight of himself. With assistance he has bathed several times and shaved—but the urge to do it himself and face up to the honor of his own reflection drives Balthier to the bathroom and make a go of it. He’s hungry—and he wants to stretch his legs some and eat at a proper table. 

He discovers he doesn’t have any clothes—likely the set he’d been wearing when he was captured was ruined beyond repair. He settles his hand against the new scar just below his ribs and finds it’s still tender. One set of clothes and one new permanent hole in his hide is a small price to pay for getting the better of a God, even if the situation isn’t fully over. His memories of speaking to his father are hazy, but he remembers the sensation of it—or how much he’d wanted that final chance to have a discussion. 

_It led me around by the nose for it, that Gerun._ He digs out a set of Basch’s clothes, far too big in the shoulders. Briefly, he considers making use of Basch’s dress uniform in a decidedly non-regulation manner. But even in farce he can’t bring himself to dress again in judge’s clothes.

He finds some practice clothes, and the neck hangs off of one of his shoulders—as his father’s shirt used to when he was a child. He makes his way downstairs, hearing Basch’s voice in a low drone from a room off the main hall. _He’s talking about..._ Balthier smiles to himself. _That damned land dispute._

He wonders where Fran is and lets himself out onto the veranda to look out at the gardens. He’s surprised to find that they’re starting to go green with spring. It’s one thing to know you’ve been missing for months, and another to witness it, when last he remembers that vision it was the very end of Fall, at the inauguration. _How have I lost so much time?_ His eyes seek out and find Basch’s carefully tended arbor of Salika-lillies, now winding fresh tendrils into the arched trellis that promise a fresh profusion of blossoms when it again comes into bloom in the late summer. The gardens themselves show the work of Basch’s hands; raw clay remade into something truly lovely. 

_Everything he touches he somehow leaves better,_ Balthier thinks, and it’s with a small spike of panic he realizes again how much he’s come to care for the man. _It’s worth talking about._ Balthier tells himself, unsteadily. _Perhaps he’ll decide that’s too much for him and spare us both the worst of it._

Except he finds he doesn’t truly hope for that—but instead some compromise, some allowance of heart’s-blood deep emotion that he doesn’t deserve. If Basch built all this from nothing, sewing something new and hale in barren ground, maybe too Balthier can try making a habit of a Judge—after all, Basch has never before asked him not to wander or roam. Perhaps this, whatever they can agree it to be, will reassure Basch. 

He hears the door behind him and then the heavy steps on the stone terrace before Basch moves up next to him, his gaze aimed out toward the same view, though he must see it more often (and more _in_ it) than Balthier does. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke,” Basch says, his eyes soft and kind.

“You don’t always _need_ to be,” Balthier says, and then allows himself a semblance of his old wry smile—though he must still look half a weck. “It’s enough knowing you _want_ to be, as often as you can.”

Basch takes this more seriously than he might otherwise, nodding and simply admitting, “I do. I hope—I know you prefer not to be stifled, but it reassures me after…”

“I know,” Balthier says. “I didn’t forget.”

“Forget?” Basch looks around toward Balthier now, confused.

“I asked you to stay by my side,” Balthier says. “I’ve needed you as much as Fran.”

It feels dangerous and raw—vulnerable to admit it, like he’s exposed the scar under his ribs for another strike, and he’s far less sure he’ll survive this one. Basch looks like it’s tearing him apart not to touch Balthier, and it’s ruefully that Balthier remembers their last visit to this very same garden. 

_I was a different man then; and now how I understand those changes in my father…_

Basch _does_ touch him then, cued by something in Balthier’s expression that he’s trapped in dark thoughts. His arms engulf Balthier tightly, embracing him against the solid bulk of Basch’s chest. “It’s alright, Balthier.” 

It isn’t—it’s very far from it, in fact, but with his eyes hidden against the uniform tunic, Balthier does feel better—though they are holding each other in broad daylight and open defiance of scandal. Perhaps there is no one that cares enough to make that a truth. Who would they go to with the information a Judge was bedding a sky pirate—even were it to be happening as often as either could find the time for? The Emperor? He might be slightly scandalized to be presented with _details_ , but he would not be _surprised_.

“What troubles you?” Basch asks, and places his broad palm in the center of Balthier’s back somehow comforting without being stifling. Basch makes a soft noise, not quite a laugh or chuckle. “Or—what _isn’t_ troubling you, if that’s easier, and we can go by process of elimination?”

“Basch,” Balthier sighs, quiet. “Don’t you worry at all?”

The question seems to surprise Basch, and he takes a deep breath before answering. “There are many things I worry about, but none so heavy as what you’ve carried of late. Will you come and tell me about it? We can sit and have some coffee just over here…”

Basch makes a gesture along the back of his grand estate toward the wrought-iron table and chairs arranged for best view of the gardens. Idly, Balthier wonders if there is any estate in Archades proper with less than twenty individual sitting areas for different purposes—all with their attendant tea table, each elegantly matched to their surroundings. Suddenly he misses the cramped interior of the Strahl.

“This may be a strange question to lead with,” Balthier says, but it is the easiest of his troubles to address. “But, my ship…” 

“Fran is retrieving it now, with Vaan and Penelo’s help,” Basch reassures him. “There was no stopping them, I’m afraid, but you don’t have to see them if you don’t like. It’s still secret that you’re here.”

Balthier wonders _how_. “Your staff must be very good at keeping secrets.”

“Surely,” Basch allows. “There is one even greater than you that they’ve held—or don’t know. Dyce picked each of them, and Fran has charmed him. If he wants a secret kept, then kept it will be.”

“A rare ally in Archades,” Balthier sighs. Basch leads him in backwards steps to the table and chairs, and Balthier allows himself to be waltzed. The terrace and it’s gardens would make a truly elegant setting for entertaining but he suspects Noah hadn’t had the inclination and so Gabranth’s traditions were passed to Basch. _Some family inheritance._

“When you’re ready, they’ll want to see you.”

“I do wish adventures left rather less permanent marks,” Balthier laments. He starts to draw away, but Basch has other ideas, sweeping Balthier up to sit folded in his lap instead of in his own chair. Though the black curls of the iron furniture look delicate, it holds steady under the pair of them, and for all Balthier would never admit it, it sends a pure thrill of pleasure down his spine when Basch casually—gently—overpowers him. Balthier has always liked strength in a man (or, he supposed with Fran in consideration, a woman) and Basch he trusts enough to indulge and enjoy liberties taken with his person. It’s rare enough that Balthier relaxes into it, rather than resisting.

“So now that you know your first love is safe and will soon be returned to you,” Basch continues. “What else worries you? Yes surely, eventually Gerun will need to be dealt with permanently, but that plan of his...well, the Auracite was destroyed. Do you know why?’

“He was afraid,” Balthier remembers the moments clearly. “An Occurian can be killed when tied so strongly to a mortal—as Venat and Vayne. He was tied too closely to me when Fran’s arrow struck, and felt death for the first time. It terrified Gerun, I think. Despite his drive for vengeance...well, who knows? My mind can only know what I comprehended of the experience.”

Balthier breathes deeply. “I wasn’t too thrilled with the thought of death, either, as it happens.”

“The stones,” Basch reminds, steering Balthier away from the depths of terror left like a sickly pool below the surface of his thoughts. 

“Gerun drew all the power from them to stay alive—what Anima wasn’t consumed in the fight, I mean. I hate to think of what sustained me—surely not food nor drink.”

Basch draws him back by the shoulder to look Balthier in the eyes. “You didn’t choose for it to happen.” 

“ _Lives,_ Basch. Whole existences eaten up by those stones and fed back to me so I could gather them with all haste. And _then_ —lives again to resist _you_ , to keep that damnable God alive, when we might otherwise have struck him down at last and for _once_.” 

“What would have happened to you?” Basch asks.

Balthier shakes his head and looks away. There’s no words proper to express what he feels—yes, he’s glad to be alive, and he would not trade it but—he had felt the payment right and proper to see Vayne dead too, when Venat was vanquished. “What will you do if it holds true to haunting bloodlines and comes next for Larsa?” 

Basch goes still and immediately pale. “I hadn’t considered it.” 

“ _Someone_ is going to have that thing inside them when it dies,” Balthier says. “I can hardly stand the thought, but…”

Basch nods. “I was sure I had the resolve to carry through, but to be sure I am glad I did not have to.” 

“Don’t mark me wrong,” Balthier says. “I am not unhappy. I just worry what the trade will be—and if that was not the last of the Auracite, how many lives will pay for it? Humes and mortals too pay in anima when Auracite is near. Had I not Gerun, I’d have been left as dead as those creatures we found in the caves.”

Basch goes quiet and then shakes his head. “Sometimes you need to fight several battles over a span of years to win a war. If there is any more Auracite, they’re sure to be on the Sky Continent—if it even still exists. I read enough to wonder… no one has reported any further growth in jagd, either.”

“My father postulated—or perhaps it was whispered in his ear—that the gods had put a sort of paling around the Sky Continent to hide it, and to punish the inhabitants.” Balthier can’t remember if he’d read it in his father’s notes, or the vision of Cidolphus told him. Either way, the information is hardly reassuring. “The palings around the smaller crypts fell with the destruction of the Sun Cryst. I wonder what else was revealed…”

“We will worry about it when you are well again,” Basch’s arms are protective around Balthier. “You pay a heavy toll each time you save the world, pirate. I want some of you left for _me._ ”

The admission shouldn’t surprise Balthier, but Basch is usually so careful—as if he might break the spell at any second and Balthier will vanish. _And given how I did just that…._ “That’s more what was on my mind, when you came out.”

Basch’s blue eyes change some, and he shifts, looking serious again. “Please—stay ‘till you’re well. If you prefer to move into the guest quarters, or even should you need the space to stay elsewhere in Tsenoble…”

He looks _so_ troubled that some last reserve of resolve crumbles away in Balthier’s heart. Never has he been offered a clearer out, and Basch has ever had a gentler touch, a patient hand, but he is a man grounded, in love with (in _love_ with, Balthier admits to himself at last,) a winged thing. Balthier shakes his head, and Basch’s eyes go even deeper into sorrow until Balthier wants to shake him.

Yet who made this but he with his unpredictable habits, long absences, and refusal to put any terms to any of it? So now, for once, finally, he tries. “Captain, I’m not leaving you.”

Basch has drawn breath to try and make some other argument, but the words make him catch himself. He meets Balthier’s gaze and waits.

“Look,” Balthier says, after a moment. Why is it so damnably hard to make himself say it? “Much as it’s my habit to avoid rules and definitions, I can hardly say a cluckatrice is a cat, just to suit my purposes or soothe my vanity.” 

“What?”

“I _mean_ we have something. Something I value and wish to continue. A relationship that I enjoy. But I also find such things hard to admit—even when it’s full past time to do so.”

Basch goes quiet. Then after a minute he asks, carefully, “So what is the cluckatrice and what is the cat?”

Balthier laughs. “What would you like to call our arrangement? What can I do to make it as good for you as you’ve made it for me? I know I’ve been very selfish about it—about being the one setting the terms.”

“Balthier,” Basch says. “I have what I want—if I would change anything, it’s just—the worry that I might step wrongly and you’d go, never to return.”

“I think we’re well past the idea that I could avoid coming back.” Balthier sighs. “Nor do I think you could go so awry that I’d have my quit of you.”

“So...you’ll always come back?”

Balthier shifts, feeling the weight of the promise and letting it settle as it might while he tries to get it into a comfortable place that Basch is alright with this—that he’s not going to try to demand anything of Balthier’s he doesn’t already have. He looks into Basch’s eyes, unsure how such a man is stuck here in Archades, instead of leading a group of virtuous knights with all the honors he deserves. _Because he goes where he’s needed and never has any place more needed an example of someone selfless._

“I will, but I want one thing in return.” Balthier eases out of Basch’s lap, keeping hold of his hand. “I’ll come to you here when you send for me, or when whim strikes me Captain, but…”

Basch lifts to his feet, looking ready to agree to anything, their hands still joined. No matter now how it started between them it’s no game. Balthier knows that what he’s given is a balance for what he’s about to ask, though Basch has always had different weights on his scales.

“Sometimes, too, you’ll have to come away with me when I ask?” Balthier watches carefully and sees that Basch registers it.

“I—” He holds on his own protest. After all he had dropped everything for _this_ errand to bring Balthier home—to perhaps prove to Balthier that he _has_ one that is long familiar to him, no matter how little he likes it. “I have duties and obligations—”

“And for the most part, I’ll leave you to them, but surely if I talk to Larsa, he won’t mind occasionally letting me steal you away?”

Basch looks like he hadn’t considered that. “Strange times we’ve come to where Sky Pirates and Emperors might conspire against Magisters for their own good.”

“So you see it for what it is. It’s a shame Zargabaath doesn’t have any friends who will see to his well being thusly,” Balthier smirks. 

“His wife is well-involved in being sure he takes suchs breaks as he may be persuaded to.”

Balthier arches his eyebrows, still waiting for an answer and refusing to be diverted. He is fairly certain he’ll get his way but with a proviso or two. Negotiations, like they specialize in here in Archades.

“Alright,” Basch says, raising their joined hands to his mouth and pressing a kiss to Balthier’s knuckles. “Within reason. I’ll trust yours—and at times you’ll have to trust mine. Of course, you’re welcome in my house whenever the whim takes you.”

“Am I…?” Balthier smiles, and leads Basch along with him, off the terrace and out to stretch his legs with a walk in the gardens.

“But try not to startle Millie _every_ time.”

Balthier is done making promises for today.

* * *

10.3

Later, in dark and privacy, Basch draws their bodies together in the bed and kisses Balthier, his hands so soft and gentle on his body that Balthier eventually can't stand how fragile it makes him feel; how delicate.

He shoves Basch over and the man goes onto his back instantly, as if he’d expected all along and been ready for it. “Have I hurt you?”

“Not in the least,” Balthier swings his thighs over Basch’s hips to sit astride him and in command. “But if you keep handling me as if I’m made out of glass, I can’t promise I won’t hurt _you_.”

Basch tries to soothe his anger, his big palms gently curling at his hips where the points of bone still stand a little further out from the skin than he likes, up over his sides and just beneath his ribs, rounding out at last now but slowly. _Why is it so fast to do the damage, but the undoing is the devil of it?_

“I don’t think you’ll break,'' Basch assures him, serious-eyed and at Balthier’s mercy. “I just thought I might be gentle with you…” 

“You might,” Balthier says, shifting his weight. “But I _wouldn’t_.”

Basch’s eyebrows arch upwards, and Balthier answers the look with one of his own, a playful challenge issued. If he hates the thought that he _has_ to go easy—that anything in life can keep him from doing exactly as he pleases, surely after all this it’s understandable. 

“Well,” Basch says, cautiously. “You could...demonstrate?”

Just like that the control is in Balthier’s hands. He enjoys the thought and it runs a thrill down his spine. Basch is no selfish lover, but Balthier has his inclinations. He usually lets Basch set the pace, and finds the results satisfactory, but today there’s something empowering about having the control handed over to him.

“Well if you’re at my mercy,” Balthier says, and it really is a delight to see how that makes Basch anticipatory. “Get undressed.”

He makes no move to unsling himself from the man’s hips to help. Basch cups the curve of his ass and lifts until Balthier gets up on his knees and begins to slide his hips free of his pants. Balthier watches over one shoulder, eyes attentive. Perhaps it’s the weight of the armor Basch wears so often now, or perhaps it’s just that he’s finally filled out after too long in the depths of Nalbina (a thought that worries Balthier greatly for the length of his own recovery) but the muscles in Basch’s belly, the way his hips shift and his body is revealed leaves Balthier feeling _hungry_ for him. To feel again that slow return to normality, as if he finally has begun to regain control of his gods-blighted body.

He’s hard already, and his cock springs free of his pants as they ease over his thighs, thick and heavy in a way that Balthier has always appreciated. It’s a compliment to the rest of Basch’s good looks, and Balthier curls his hand around it, eagerly giving a long stroke root-to-tip to hear Basch groan. He feels fully in command, watching Basch lay back after he finishes the tricky job of kicking his pants off onto the floor.

Balthier is starting to feel the constriction of his own pants. His shirt and waistcoat are already over on the floor somewhere, lost in the preamble. Basch’s hand palms over the front of his pants, pressing against Balthier’s hardening cock through the restraining fabric to tease him. Balthier sighs out a hissing breath in answer, impatient with all the necessary steps. He twists his hips out of his own pants, and Basch adjusts to curl his hand firmly around Balthier’s cock and gives it a long, tight stroke. It feels like an entirely new sensation somehow, as if this is the first time—and Balthier realizes it _is_ —he’s been touched like this in a long time. His cock feels sensitive, the rough pattern of calluses alternating with smooth and warm skin on Basch’s palm seems to stamp into his awareness as he rolls his hips into the motion.

It’s like his body is slowly waking up again to the idea of pleasurable sensation, though Balthier can feel the strain already of holding up on his thighs, the way sweat is gathering in the curve of his lower back from the exertion he wouldn't have batted an eye at a year ago. It’s a road, recovery, and one Balthier is tired of traveling. He shifts his weight from one knee to the other to get his pants the rest of the way off. As he pushes, the scar over his pectoral muscle pulls painfully, and Balthier stops with a wince.

“Let me help,” Basch says, sitting up a little, leaning around Balthier to help him get his pants untangled from his legs and then they’re both bared to each other. Balthier lets his weight settle back evenly onto his knees and Basch pulls him against his chest, leaning in to kiss him in his steady and solid way.

“You can help,” Balthier breaks the kiss to push forward with his hips rudely, pushing his cock against Basch’s belly for the friction. “By giving me something slick.”

Basch chuckles warmly, and it’s the _feeling_ of it against Balthier’s skin that leaves him feeling warm, tickled somehow to his core as Basch leans and reaches for the low table—ridiculously ornate as everything else in the magisterial estate—to produce a phial of clear liquid, ever at hand. He pulls the cork and pours some into his palm, then over Balthier’s grip on Basch’s cock so his slow strokes work him slick.

It’s still cool to the touch when Basch reaches behind to push and rub with two fingers against Balthier’s entrance, teasing in time with the stroking motion of Balthier’s hand on Basch’s cock. Touching and painting a line of cool slick against the heat there that’s enough for Balthier to shudder and push back until two of Basch’s fingers push into him with a slick ease that doesn’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as the thickness of Basch’s cock. Basch is clever with them and he pushes as deep as he can, stretching Balthier’s body as he rides back against the intrusion, straightening his back so Basch can reach deeper still.

He can hear the change in his own breath and feel the warmth growing under his skin, sweating between his shoulder blades as he _wants_. Basch hooks his fingers toward the front of Balthier’s body dragging a cry from him as the sensation swarms over his already buzzing senses and he shifts, letting Basch do it again, again, until his insides start to feel liquid with desire. It’s not enough yet, but if Balthier felt like a patient man he knows Basch could coax it out of him with the slow, deliberate dedication that’s such an attractive feature of his.

“More,” Balthier breathes, and Basch pushes a third finger in, coating him with enough lube to be sure there won’t be so much as a faint pinch. Balthier surges up with a wave of impatience, his grip steadying Basch’s cock as he moves into place.

“Easy,” Basch’s hands hold at his hips. Balthier shakes his head—he refuses to go slower and easier than he has to, to concede one more instant to the circumstances he had no control over. He pushes, letting his body take the stretch of Basch’s cock into him with the help of gravity serving to carry him down and determination letting him ignore the stretch.

Basch rolls his hips up, helping, holding Balthier’s hips and doing the work of fucking slowly into him until his body finally goes loose and soft around Basch as he pushes in to the hilt. Balthier gasps, his body is out of practice but it _works_ , and Basch seems to fill him just enough.

“Alright?” Basch checks on him, and Balthier digs his nails into the man’s chest in warning reproach.

“Are _you_?” Balthier challenges back, looking Basch in the eyes as he rolls his hips down against Basch’s. 

Basch looks entirely too seriously for such an act, his blue eyes focused and sweeping up from the join of their bodies to meet Balthier’s gaze earnestly. “Yes, Balthier, I’m—”

“Then _move_ , Captain, that’s an order,” Balthier can feel his thighs shaking with the effort of lifting him up again, and Basch finally finds use for his coddling, gripping Balthier by the hips and pushing up. It’s less rough and shallower than he usually likes but they find a rhythm. Basch lets Balthier push him for something faster. He sits up with his hands on his thighs so that Basch’s cock pushes against his prostate like his fingers had earlier, and closes his eyes and just grinds with his hips, greedy and taking his own pleasure.

He gets his hand at the base of his own cock and squeezes, strokes, trusts Basch (now panting and moaning his own pleasure) to both hold out long enough and keep up as Balthier rides his cock like he’s in a hurry. He _is_ , though he couldn't say why until release crashes over him almost unexpectedly. Sound punches out of him as his body bears down on Basch’s and Basch shoves up possessively. For a moment they both go still except for Balthier’s cock pulsing in his hand as he soaks Basch’s belly with release.

He loses track of himself for a long moment as his body goes utterly slack and soft with lassitude. Basch gathers him unresisting into his arms and Balthier only really protests when Basch’s cock slips free and the mess pressed between their bellies starts to get tacky and unpleasant. Gradually, Balthier’s heart rate slows and he can feel Basch’s breathing even out into the slow pattern of sleep. For once, he is too tired to protest needing a bath, too comfortable to want to squirm free and make an escape to the next day’s adventure.

A day will come—soon—when Balthier is ready to depart, to swing wide on his orbit and feel the wind in his hair. For now—for once—he lets Basch hold him for the night through, and the idea of waking in the same place, relaxed and welcome, does not panic him but lends him comfort.

* * *

The End.


End file.
